


Twice Bitten

by whichclothes



Series: Biteverse [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-23
Updated: 2010-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:51:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all"><em>Hard-Bitten</em></a> (a quick synopsis of which you can read <a href="http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1">here</a>). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's  bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram & Hart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to[](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to[](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 1/11**_  
**Title:** Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 1/11   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to[](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to[](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005ddac/)  
---  
  
**  
CHAPTER ONE**

 

“So. Gay now?”

Xander shrugged and grinned. “Looks that way.”

“That’s cool. But Spike? Didn’t see that coming.”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t really have predicted it myself. I mean, a demon, sure. But this particular demon…well, not so much.”

“But you two, you have a thing.”

Xander was aware that a sappy smile had settled on his face, but he couldn’t help it. “Yeah. We really do.”

“Pirate, too?”

Xander automatically felt at the patch over his missing eye. “Nope. This is a souvenir from Sunnydale, actually.”

The other man tilted his head a little and peered at him. “Suits you.”

“Thanks. But hey, what about you? It’s been a long time. Willow said she tracked you down in Vermont?”

The other man nodded and had a sip of his coffee. “Been there a couple years. Was in New York a while. Sound engineer. Got tired of the crowds. Now I run an organic grocery.”

“You like Vermont?”

“Lots of trees.”

“And on the homefront? No vampires, I take it.”

“Nah. You got all the good ones here. Girlfriend, though. Wolf.”

It was Xander’s turn to nod. “That’s great.” There was a short pause. “Well, thanks for coming all the way to LA.”

“It’s good to catch up, man.”

They drank silently for a few minutes as Xander considered how best to approach the real reason for this visit. The sounds of LAX eddied around them, mumbled gate announcements and clattering suitcases and squealing children. His old friend looked pretty much the same, he thought. Red hair gelled in short spikes, he wore a faded t-shirt from some band Xander had never heard of and jeans so well-worn they were nearly white. He had a hemp bracelet around his right wrist and a silver-colored paw pendant on a chain around his neck.

In the end, it was Oz who spoke first. “So. Wolf?”

Xander sighed, deeply and loudly. “Yeah. Will told you?”

“Yep.”

“It happened a few months ago, in Nebraska. It was…this whole fucked-up mess, really.”

“How’ve you been handling it?”

Xander grimaced. “I dunno. I mean, I haven’t eaten anyone yet. I built this big cage, and it’s not too bad.”

“Better than the book cage, huh?”

“Yeah. I even installed plumbing in there. It’s strong. Spike babysits me. Angel’s there, too, in case I ever get loose. But….” He stopped, not quite sure how to articulate the rest. Oz waited patiently, toying with the cardboard sleeve to his coffee. “It’s kind of a hassle,” he finally said, a little lamely.

Oz glanced up at him. “The wolf wants out, huh?”

Xander grunted his agreement. “Yeah.”

“Man, you can’t make it go away, you know?” Oz frowned at him, and Xander realized that that was exactly what Oz himself had once wanted—to get rid of the wolf. But Xander shook his head.

“I don’t want to. I…I kinda like it, actually.”

Surprise flickered across Oz’s face. Either his old friend was less stoic than he used to be, or he’d been genuinely shocked by what Xander just said.

“Spike and Angel, the old gang from Sunnydale, they’re always fighting evil. Me too, I guess. But they have all these superpowers. Well, except Giles, but he’s got that Watcher stuff going on. Me, I’ve always been just a guy. But now I can have superpowers, too. Spike doesn’t have to worry so much about me getting killed. Hell, I’m almost as strong and fast as he is. And my teeth are bigger.” He smiled a little and Oz’s lips twitched, too.

“So you want…?”

“I want to be able to control the beast. Get out of the fucking cage and…and _use_ the wolf. And not worry about hurting anyone but the bad guys. I was hoping maybe you could help.”

Oz stared at him for a moment, considering. “So…you accept that the wolf is always gonna be part of you?”

“Yes.” Xander smiled again. “I embrace the beast within.”

“Then you have already mastered the first lesson, padawan.”

 

Oz admired the car as Xander tossed Oz’s duffle bag into the trunk. It was Spike’s car, actually. He’d made Angel buy it as a replacement for the one that had been impounded back in Chicago, which they’d never bothered to retrieve. This one was a ’65 GTO, black, of course, and Spike liked it so much that Xander pretended to be jealous. Xander still drove the van, but he’d wanted to greet Oz at the airport with something a little cooler. Besides, Spike was probably still sound asleep.

“It’s okay if I crash with you guys for a few days?” Oz asked.

Xander snorted. “Yeah, I think we can probably find some space for you.”

They spoke only a little as Xander wound his way through the dregs of rush-hour traffic. It was nearly an hour before they pulled to a halt in front of the Hyperion. “Home, sweet home,” Xander said.

The wards were still up, but they seemed to recognize Xander as a resident now, because once Xander invited his friend inside, Oz was able to enter. Oz whistled quietly as he looked around the lobby, and Xander dumped the duffle bag on the floor. “Honey, I’m home!” he called.

But it was Angel who appeared first, from his office behind the reception desk. He and Oz exchanged long looks with each other. “Hi,” Angel finally said.

“Hi.”

Apparently that was sufficient for both of them, because then Angel nodded and ducked back behind the door.

“You live here?” Oz asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Just the three of you?”

“Yeah. Oh, and the evil resurrected lawyer guy in the basement. He’s locked up and everything, but I’d stay away from him.”

“’Kay.”

Bootsteps thundered down the stairs, and then there was Spike, mostly dressed but his hair still sleep-tousled, bounding toward them and wrapping a possessive arm around Xander. “Didn’t scratch the car, pet?” he rumbled.

“Nah. Just put a couple big old dents in it.”

Spike swatted Xander’s ass and then put his arm back around Xander’s waist.

“Uh, you guys know each other, right?”

Spike tipped his chin at Oz. “Dog-boy.”

Oz nodded back. “Spike.”

Spike’s arm around Xander tightened a little and Xander, who’d learned to read Spike’s moods very well, realized that Spike was jealous. Xander turned his head and pressed a kiss to Spike’s cheek, and heard Spike sigh quietly in response. Even without the csípés spell his vampire had a tendency to be a bit emotional.

“Spike, I’m gonna get Oz settled in his room. And then I thought maybe we’d go out to dinner, okay?”

“Thought the two of you would be rounding up sheep for supper,” Spike said slightly petulantly.

“Not my time of the month, dear.” Xander kissed him again. “C’mon. We can go to that place with the spicy ribs, if you want.”

Spike sighed again, this time in resignation. “All right.”

A third kiss, and then Xander grabbed Oz’s bag and led him up the stairs. They’d decided to give Oz a room on the second floor. Angel’s suite was on the third, and they were sleeping in a room on the fourth floor while Xander remodeled the adjacent rooms into a big suite. The work was going well, and he hoped to be finished in another week or so. Optimistically, Xander had decided to leave his cage in the old room. It was hard to fit it into the décor of the new one.

Oz’s room was a nice one with a view of the courtyard. Xander had cleaned it the previous day and put in fresh bedding. Now, Xander gave Oz a quick overview of the facilities while Oz nodded approvingly.

“So, if you want to crash for a while or whatever, I was thinking we could leave in an hour or so. I think I need to go deal with a grouchy vamp first.”

“That’s cool.”

Xander found Spike slouched on the loveseat in their room, remote control in his hand and scowl on his face. Spike pretended to ignore Xander as Xander collapsed beside him.

He tried reason first. “Spike. You know I need to figure out how to control myself.”

Spike’s scowl deepened. “Don’t know why you need that tosser.”

“Okay. First, Oz is not a tosser. He’s an old friend and a good guy, and he’s come all the way from Vermont to help me out. Second, it’s not like accommodating werewolves are a dime a dozen. He knows how to handle himself and he’s willing to teach me how. And third, he’s straight and he has a girlfriend, and you are my one and only squeeze. Got it?”

Spike made a discontented noise and didn’t look at him.

Fine. Xander knew how to handle the crabby undead.

He stood up again and then straddled Spike, plopping himself inelegantly onto his vampire’s lap. Spike growled, not very convincingly, and craned his neck to look around Xander toward the television screen. So Xander captured Spike’s head with his hands and leaned their foreheads together, wiggling his crotch a little closer to Spike’s.

“Spiiiike,” he sang. “We have an hour.”

There was no way Spike could ignore him like this, but Spike did his best, closing his eyes and keeping his body tense.

But Xander knew how to break down Spike’s defenses. He tilted his head and then latched his lips onto Spike’s cool, delicate neck, sucking and then softly biting. Spike groaned and immediately loosened his muscles. Chuckling to himself, Xander continued working on Spike’s skin while palming the hardening bulge in Spike’s jeans. Spike groaned again and let his head fall back against the cushions, further exposing himself to Xander’s busy mouth. The remote control dropped from his slack hand, bouncing off the seat and onto the floor. Neither of them paid it any attention.

Without detaching himself from Spike’s neck, Xander fumbled at the vampire’s fly, finally managing to release the trapped erection. He felt Spike’s hips straining slightly upward under his weight. With another silent chuckle, Xander moved his hands up so they were clutching Spike’s shoulders, and scooted a bit more forward so that Spike’s cock was held against the denim at Xander’s groin. Xander’s own cock twitched its approval, and for a moment Xander considered unzipping himself, too. But Spike was already writhing and panting underneath him, and Xander didn’t want to break any contact, even just for a moment.

Xander bit down again on Spike’s tender skin, just a little harder this time, and Spike gasped, “Xan!” Xander loved the sound of him like this, deep and hoarse and all because of what Xander was doing to him. Even though the full moon was a week away, it made the wolf stir inside him. He heard a low, purring growl and realized it wasn’t the vampire, it was himself, happy to be in possession of his mate, pleased to have the powerful creature beneath him thrumming with want and need.

Xander allowed his teeth to dig in a little more, and he ground his lower body into Spike’s.

Spike made a desperate bleating noise and his entire body went rigid, and then Xander could feel tepid fluid soaking through his jeans and the hem of his t-shirt. Spike collapsed backward bonelessly. “Bloody hell!” he rasped.

With a final lick of Spike’s salty-sweet skin, Xander removed his mouth and sat back a little, grinning. “Feel better?”

Spike blinked at him, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “Pet,” he began.

“No, wait. Listen for a minute. I need Oz’s help. It’s really good of him to come here, and I need you to be nice to him. I’ll make it worth your while, okay? And you can stop with the jealousy because I love you, and only you, and that’s it.”

Spike looked slightly chastened. “Sorry. I only…he’s a wolf like you, yeah? Thought maybe you’d rather—“

“Rather screw him because we’re the same kind of monster?”

“Yeah.”

“I told you, he’s not interested. Believe it or not, not everyone finds me irresistible. I’m not interested either, no matter what he is. No matter what I am. Do I have to worry about you and Angel because you’re both vamps? You two go back a hell of a lot longer than me and Oz.”

Spike shuddered and shook his head forcefully. “No. I do _not_ want to shag the pouf.”

“And I do _not_ want to shag Oz. Got it?”

Spike nodded slowly. “All right. ‘M sorry. I….” He sighed. “Can’t bear the thought of losing you.”

It still sent a thrill through Xander to hear those words. Probably always would. “I don’t want any losing either,” he replied softly. “With Oz’s help I’ll be safer, stronger. Able to stick around a lot longer as a thorn in your side.”

Spike smirked. “Doesn’t feel like my side is where you want to be, love,” he said, pressing his palm to Xander’s still-hard cock.

Xander bent down to kiss his lover’s cheek. “I think where I want to be right now is in the bathroom, watching you shower so we can get going. I’m hungry.”

“Stomach outvoting your dick, love?”

“Hmm. Maybe we can please them both.” Xander dismounted Spike and then tugged him to his feet.

Their shower was too small to share. The new one, which was nearly complete, would be plenty big enough for two, but for now, Xander sat naked on the closed toilet, stroking himself and watching Spike leisurely, teasingly, scrub every bit of his beautiful body. By the time the shower was over, Spike had only to climb out, drop to his knees in front of Xander, and open his mouth, and then Xander was emptying himself between those full, water-warmed lips.

 

Dinner went better than he’d expected.

They’d been about to walk out the door of the hotel when Angel materialized again, and he looked so much like someone who was fishing for an invitation that Xander and Spike rolled their eyes at each other, and then Xander said, “Hey, Angel. Want to come with?”

“Uh, no thanks. I’ve got…that paperwork on the Hrilkot treaty from last week, and some bills, and—“

Xander poked Spike in the side. “C’mon, Peaches,” Spike said. “The work will wait. You can take Buck here in your Viper. Show him your nice big engine.”

Xander suppressed a snicker and he saw the corner of Oz’s lips quirk, too. Angel glowered. But then he shrugged on his coat and he joined them as they walked outside.

Spike and Angel raced each other to the restaurant. Angel won by half a block, and Spike blamed his loss on Xander’s roving hands.

Xander and Oz each ordered about half a cow’s worth of ribs. Xander was finding himself more carnivorous nowadays, even when the moon wasn’t full. Spike had a plate of onion rings and snagged some of Xander’s food, too. Angel didn’t eat at all, but he drank, and by his third beer he was actually looking almost relaxed, for him.

Willow had told Oz only the basics of what had happened, so now Xander filled him in on the details, with Spike adding his perspective now and then. Apparently he’d managed to master his emotions for now, and, although he still touched Xander more often than usual, he was actually pretty pleasant to Oz.

Oz was a good listener. By the time Xander was finishing the last mouthfuls of chocolate cake, the other three had told their guest about Angel’s battle with Wolfram and Hart, and Xander’s time in Africa, and Spike’s death and resurrection.

“Wow,” Oz finally said. “And it’s a big deal for me when I get a bad shipment of lettuce.”

“But your wolf?” Spike asked.

“Pretty mellow, mostly. Couple times a month, Cammie and I hunt deer.”

“So you tamed it,” said Spike.

“No. Just learned to use it wisely.”

“Like the demon,” Angel said thoughtfully. “It’s still there, underneath, but…but it doesn’t rule you. Especially if you let it out to play, now and then.”

Xander made a face. He’d seen how Angel’s demon liked to play. But Oz nodded and downed the last of his Heineken.

“And you can show my boy here how to do this?” Spike asked. His arm was resting on the back of Xander’s chair.

“Yeah.”

“All right, then.”

The waitress came by and dimpled hopefully at Angel. She was blonde and cute, and she’d been flirting with him all night while Angel had been pretending not to notice. Xander was fairly certain he’d be blushing, if vampires could. But maybe the flirting was a good thing, because Angel ended up fumbling for his wallet and paying for dinner, either to get rid of her quickly or to impress her, Xander wasn’t sure. Angel had plenty of money, of course, and Spike always seemed to manage to get his hands on cash somehow, but Xander was dead broke. Most of the time that didn’t bother him, but he didn’t really want to advertise the fact to Oz.

They went out for drinks afterward, at a club where the music wasn’t too bad, and Oz turned out to know the band. Spike and Xander danced together for a while as Oz and Angel sat. When the band took a break, the singer and one of the guitar players joined them, and Xander basked in the other customers’ envious looks. Here was Xander Harris, one-time Zeppo and doughnut boy, with his gorgeous boyfriend and supernatural friends, chatting with half of The Awful Mess. Tonight, Xander Harris was cool.

 

Angel had set up the hotel’s old ballroom as a training room. Every now and then he and Spike sparred there. Xander liked to watch—the deadly dance of those two powerful bodies was a thing of beauty. Lately, Spike had been bringing Xander there, too, teaching him some fancy fighting moves. Nobody had ever really bothered to do that with him, and it turned out he wasn’t as awful as he’d feared. Maybe the wolf helped, even when he was in human form. He still ended up bruised and battered, but he healed a lot faster, and Spike was always happy to kiss him better.

This afternoon, though, Spike and Angel were still asleep as Xander and Oz sat on the floor in the middle of the big, nearly empty room. Xander was yawning himself—he kept mainly vampire hours, these days—and wishing he’d had a third cup of coffee. He was wearing a pair of sweats and an orange Spongebob tee that he’d bought mostly to tease Spike, whom he’d once caught clandestinely glued to Nickelodeon, caught up in adventures in the pineapple under the sea. Spike had not been amused at the shirt at all, and had responded when he first saw it by wrestling Xander to the ground, tugging Xander’s jeans down over his hips, and giving him a good spanking.

So that had worked out pretty well.

“Stop thinking about Spike, man.”

Xander blinked back into focus. “How could you tell?”

“Goofy smile. You two have it bad.”

“Yeah, I…. Sorry. I’ll pay attention now.”

“Like you did in school.”

“Mmm, better. Much better.” Xander tried to empty his overfull mind, to focus on what Oz had to say. This wasn’t algebra—he was actually going to need this in real life. “Go ahead.”

Oz looked a little skeptical. “Okay, so you know the wolf is you and you’re the wolf, right?”

“Right.”

“That doesn’t bug you?”

Xander shrugged. “Like I said, I kinda like it. It saved my life once already. And, well, it feels good.” He was a little embarrassed to admit this, but Oz nodded sagely.

“Yeah. Okay. So if you want to control a wolf, you gotta think like one. You ever have a dog?”

Xander shook his head. “Parents wouldn’t let me. Probably just as well. On the Hellmouth it’d probably have turned out to be some kind of brain-eating demon in disguise or something. Or a weredog. Are there weredogs, too? Or maybe werecats? Because--”

“Focus.”

“Sorry.”

“So wolves, dogs, they like a pack. They respect pack structure.”

“Respect the pack. Got it.”

“Who’s your pack, Xan?”

“Uh…does it have to be wolves?”

“No.” Oz shrugged. “Dogs make humans their pack, right?”

“So…I guess mine is Spike and Angel. Huh. I’m probably the first werewolf with a vamp pack.” He couldn’t help laughing a little at the thought.

Oz looked thoughtful, and Xander remembered that his old friend was actually a pretty smart guy—Willow-smart, almost—even though his grades had never reflected it. After a few minutes, Oz said “I think it’ll help if you let one of them be alpha.”

“Alpha. Like, the boss of me?”

“Head of the pack. They’re strong enough for it. When you’re being wolfish, you’ll tend to follow your alpha’s lead. It’ll help with your control.”

Xander folded his arms stubbornly across his chest. “I am so not letting Angel be my alpha.”

“Spike, then.”

“Does than mean I have to obey him all the time?” Spike would probably like that, but only for a little while, Xander suspected. And obedience wasn’t really Xander’s strongpoint anyway.

But Oz shook his head. “Just when you’re furry. You can boss him the rest of the time.”

Xander thought this over. He rolled the idea around a little in his head, and then let the wolf taste it. The wolf silently bayed its approval. It wanted a pack and a strong pack leader.

“Okay,” Xander said at last. “I can do that. How much power can I have over this thing, Oz?”

“It took practice. A lot. But now I don’t have to change when the moon is full. And I can change the rest of the month, if I try.”

This was better than Xander had hoped for. It would mean that he could shift only when he wanted to, when it would be useful, or when Spike was close by to keep him from chowing down on the good citizens of Los Angeles.

“Okay,” Xander said. “Teach me how.”

 

By the time Oz had been there a week, he’d taught Xander all he knew. The rest, he said, would come with practice. Already, Xander felt more confident, more in command of himself. When the moon rose in its full glory, he still changed, but this time it was different. They’d told Spike how to take on the mantle of alpha, and he had, gladly. Xander-as-wolf looked to his leader, and his leader guided and calmed him, and this month Xander didn’t need to be caged. He didn’t feel ready yet to leave the Hyperion on all fours, but he was pretty sure he’d be able to do that in a month or two.

Angel gave Oz a quick goodbye, and Spike flung an arm around him and thanked him for helping his boy. And then Xander and Oz piled into the GTO—it was still too early for the vampires to be outside—and drove to LAX.

Standing a little awkwardly in the drop-off zone, Xander finally gave in and hugged Oz. “Thanks, man. I mean…you’ve saved me, you know?”

“It’s all good, Xan.”

“Take good care of those groceries. And your girlfriend.”

Oz’s face suddenly split into a huge grin. “Did I tell you? She’s pregnant.”

Xan whooped. “Puppies! You’ll make a great Dad, Oz.”

Oz looked solemn again. “Not like mine.”

“Or mine.”

They nodded in mutual understanding, and then Xander clapped Oz once more on the back. “You’re welcome here anytime, you know?”

Oz smiled and gave him a little salute, and then shouldered his bag. Xander watched as his old friend disappeared into the airport crowds. Then he hopped in the car and sped off, anxious to get home before the sun set.

 

[Chapter Two](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/69094.html)


	2. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to[](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to[](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 2/11**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten  
**Chapter:** 2/11   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to[](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to[](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005ddac/)  
---  
  
**CHAPTER TWO**

 

It was Xander who found him.

That was no surprise. In this form, Xander’s sense of smell surpassed even a vampire’s, and scents layered all around him like another world, telling a million stories at once. For a day or two after the moon began to wane, Xander always felt a little as if he was stumbling around blind. For that reason and others, he was extra needy those days, and Spike had to hold him extra tightly, and suck at Xander’s neck, and whisper filthy sweet words in his ears.

Not that Spike minded.

Tonight, though, the moon was perfectly round and bright, grinning down at them through the smog, and Xander padded confidently through the streets on four paws, his nose reading the ground and the air as if they were newspapers. Spike jogged alongside. He had a leash in his hand, supple black leather that matched his duster, and ready to snap it onto Xander’s collar should they encounter a police officer. Neither of them wanted Xander to end up at the pound, especially since anyone who knew animals would soon realize that the one-eyed canine was not exactly a golden retriever.

They’d jogged up to Griffith Park tonight. Xander caught a rabbit. In the back of his mind he knew he’d feel a little guilty about it later, when the wolfishness had receded for four more weeks, but the hunt and the crunch of bones and the taste of hot flesh were too tempting now to resist. Besides, it was better than eating the neighbors. The previous month they’d driven into the mountains and together they’d chased down a deer. Spike had enjoyed that as much as Xander. When they’d returned to the Hyperion, filthy and happy, Angel shook his head and grumbled, but they’d both caught the flash of longing in his eyes.

For tonight, though, the rabbit and the run were enough, and Xander was ready to return home and wait for the sun to rise so that he and Spike could shower together and then tumble into bed. Less than a mile from the hotel, though, he caught an odd odor. He stopped and thrust his muzzle into the air. Spike waited patiently, not breaking his concentration with questions.

Xander opened his mouth and drew air in deeply. Yeah, there it was. Blood—not human—and fear and something tingly that made him want to sneeze. Magic.

He took off at a swift and businesslike trot, and Spike followed. “Timmy’s in the well?” Spike asked as they ran.

Xander whined an answer. It was damn frustrating not being able to speak. Spike tried to understand Xander’s various barks and growls and moans, and he usually got a general idea, but it was impossible to convey specifics. When he was in this form, Xander didn’t even think in words so much as in pictures and emotions and smells.

They rounded a corner into an alley. The tall buildings blocked most of the moonlight and Xander wouldn’t have been able to see a thing with human eyes, but now his night vision was as sharp as Spike’s. And mostly what he saw was the expected scattering of garbage. But there in the corner something was huddled, unmoving and pale.

Xander and Spike slowed, uncertain whether there was a threat. The thing remained still as they stalked closer. Xander stopped perhaps ten feet away and so did Spike, and they tried to get a better look at it.

At first glance, it appeared to be a naked human curled in a tight fetal ball so that only the back and buttocks and a little of the bald head were visible. It didn’t smell at all human, though, and its skin was an odd tone. Xander couldn’t see color well like this, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t the normal beige or brown hues. He could also see now that the flesh was badly torn, vivid slashes of blood criss-crossing the shoulders and spine and ass. This close, the scent of it was strong and heady, and Xander panted heavily as he kept himself under control. Spike placed a calming hand at the base of his neck, and that helped.

“Oi,” Spike said, his voice echoing off the bricks. “Show your face.”

The…whatever it was…responded, but only by trembling and coiling even more into itself.

“We don’t mean to hurt you,” Spike said, his voice softer. It didn’t help, though. Xander could taste the terror rolling off the creature. Xander whined quietly and looked up at Spike, who patted between his shoulders. “Stay here for a mo, yeah?”

Xander sat.

Moving very slowly, Spike crept closer until he was only inches away. “Do you need help?” he asked, and he lightly touched its shoulder with the fingertips of one hand.

The thing wailed, a nearly-human sound that made Xander shiver. Spike glanced back over his shoulder at Xander, who shook his head and snorted lightly. He sensed no threat from the creature. To the contrary, it smelled of fright and desperation. It smelled of prey, actually, and although Xander had learned to restrain the beast in himself, it was only the stern look from his alpha that kept him from springing and sinking his teeth into the helpless thing. “Steady,” Spike whispered, both to Xander and to the shaking creature beside him.

Xander watched impatiently as Spike gently tugged at the thing until it was on its back. Its chest and belly were in worse shape than its back, mottled with bruises and streaked with jagged tears. It whimpered and tried to hide its face, but Spike pulled at its arms.

It looked, Xander thought, like a drawing a young child might make. Its eyes were huge and nearly lidless circles, the right one noticeably larger than the left. Its nose was simply two holes, and its mouth was a wide, thin slash, now turned down in dismay. The proportions of its limbs were uneven and wrong, and it had far too many fingers on its huge hands. Too many toes, too, and Xander didn’t see any way it could walk on feet shaped like that. Maybe it couldn’t, because its knees were badly scuffed.

_His_ knees, Xander mentally corrected himself, because he had male organs at his hairless crotch. They looked bruised and misshapen as well.

“It’s all right,” Spike crooned softly. “Let us help you.”

The creature’s gaze darted frantically between the vampire and the werewolf. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and Xander could hear the dance of his heartbeat. Then he heard something else, the rumble of a truck engine, and he looked up at the sliver of sky that was visible between the buildings. The sky was beginning to lighten. He barked sharply and pointed upward with his nose.

“Right,” Spike said. “Time for the monsters to get inside.” He turned back to the creature, which was making garbled little sounds. “’M gonna carry you, yeah? Just lie still.”

The thing went very tense for a moment, and then relaxed. The expression on his face was of resignation, not trust, but at least he didn’t struggle as Spike scooped him into his arms and then stood. Xander barked again and then turned and ran. Spike was close behind as they made their way back home.

 

“What the hell is _that_?”

Spike and Xander gave Angel twin glares as the creature cowered even more against the headboard. As if he wasn’t terrorized enough by a werewolf and one vampire, now he had to encounter a second vampire, this one bigger and loud. Honestly, though, Xander was probably giving their unwilling guest the biggest wiggins, because a few minutes ago he’d morphed from an enormous wolf into a naked, one-eyed human man. Well, nearly naked. He was still wearing his collar.

It was Spike who finally answered Angel. “We found him not far from here. Haven’t sussed out what he is yet.”

“I’ve never seen a demon like that.”

“I don’t think he’s a demon,” Xander said. The vampires looked at him and he shrugged. “He doesn’t smell demony.”

“What _does_ he smell like?” Angel demanded impatiently.

“Like a spell.”

Spike sighed heavily. “More sodding hocus-pocus,” he muttered.

The creature shifted slightly on the blankets, sending up a small cloud of dust. Spike had set him down in a room across from their suite, and it had probably been years since anyone was in here.

Spike sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at the thing with his head slightly tilted. The wounded creature had evidently decided that Spike was the least scary of the trio, because he looked back at Spike with huge, pleading eyes. At least his breathing had calmed a little, and his tremors had stopped.

“Can you understand me?” Spike asked quietly.

Hesitantly, the thing nodded. His head was too big for his body and his neck too long and thin. And now Xander could see that his skin was a pale, bluish-green color.

“Can you talk?”

The response was a series of unintelligible noises. That mouth was not constructed for human sounds. The creature slumped unhappily.

“Are you a demon?” Spike asked.

The creature shook his head.

“This is going to take all day,” Angel complained.

“Hang on,” said Xander. He ran out the door and then into his and Spike’s suite. He quickly yanked on a pair of green sweats and then he grabbed a pad of lined, yellow paper and a pen. Angel had boxes and boxes of legal paper in the basement along with lots of other office supplies; apparently, he’d stolen them from Wolfram and Hart before he destroyed the firm. Xander had used this pad to write a letter to Willow.

Back in the other room, Angel was still frowning while Spike waited as patiently as he could. Xander held the pad and pen out to the thing in the bed. The thing took them awkwardly in his bizarre hands. He placed the paper on the bed and the tried for a few moments to grasp the pen properly, but he wasn’t built right. Finally he just held it between his palms. The three of them craned their necks to see what he wrote. The letters were messy, but not much less legible than Xander’s chicken scratches.

_HUMAN_, the paper said.

“Are you under a hex?” Spike asked.

The man—because, apparently, that’s what he was—shrugged. It looked very strange on his skewed frame.

“Did somebody do this to you?”

The man shrugged again.

“Is there somebody you want us to contact?”

He shook his head slowly, then he swayed and almost fell over. He must be exhausted, Xander thought, and probably in a lot of pain. “Hey,” he said. “How about if you just tell us your name, and then get some rest. We can figure this out later.”

The man shot him a grateful look, Xander thought, and then struggled again with the pen. And again, the rest of them craned to see. It took a long time for him to write all the letters, but finally he dropped the pen and looked up at them.

_LAMONT MCDONALD_.

 

“It’s a common name.”

Angel shook his head. “No. It’s too big of a coincidence.”

“Why don’t we go ask him?”

Spike and Angel swiveled their heads to look at him. They’d left Lamont to sleep and now they were gathered in the suite across the hall. Angel leaned up against one chocolate-colored wall while Spike paced and Xander sprawled in his favorite chair.

“Because he can’t talk. Because even if he could, I wouldn’t believe a word he said.” Angel had his arms crossed on his chest. His shirt was buttoned wrong, Xander noticed. He’d been in bed already when they’d brought Lamont home, and he’d thrown his clothes on in a hurry. He was barefoot, too.

Spike came over and bent down to press his lips to Xander’s temple. “No, Xan’s right,” he said, straightening. “We should at least ask.”

Angel rolled his eyes, but he trailed behind them as they walked down the stairs to the lobby, and then down into the basement. Lindsey looked at them with alarm as they stood outside his cell.

His living conditions had improved some. Xander had installed a toilet, one that was usually sold to prisons and had a sink in the lid. There was a shower spigot, too. Cold water only, but better than nothing. Angel had replaced the lawyer’s chains with slightly longer ones as well. Lindsey still could take only short strides and the range of motion in his arms was limited, but at least he could stand fully upright. Angel had thrown a mattress in, a thin one that once belonged to a rollaway cot, and he’d even given Lindsey a blanket.

Lindsey, however, did not seem appreciative. Maybe because he still had no clothes. But more likely because Willow had given them a spell that kept the man from making a single peep. It meant the ring gag was gone, and it also meant Lindsey couldn’t utter his magic demon-conking words. Considering what Lindsey had done to Angel and Spike, and also considering he was an indirect cause of Xander’s own furry predicament, Xander figured Lindsey ought to be thankful he was being treated as well as he was. Sometimes Xander remembered the anguish Spike had gone through as a result of the csípés spell, and how close his beloved vampire had come to being dusted, and Xander had to stop himself from storming into the cell and ripping the bastard to shreds.

Lindsey sat on his mattress and moved his gaze from one of them to another, as if, a year into his captivity, he still hoped to find a savior.

“Do you have a relative named Lamont?” Angel asked.

Lindsey’s eyes went round with shock, which was answer enough.

Angel stalked over to the corner, where the boxes of paper were, and pulled out a fresh yellow pad. Another box contained pens, and he took one of those, too. Then he came back and thrust the items through the bars of the cage. “Need some answers,” he said.

Xander could actually see the wheels turning in Lindsey’s head as the lawyer considered how to react. But before Lindsey made a choice, a huge wave of exhaustion crashed over Xander. He would have fallen if Spike hadn’t caught him. Shape-shifting was enormously taxing on his body, and he needed to recuperate.

Spike held a strong arm around Xander’s waist, and Xander leaned against his vampire, barely able to keep his one eye open. “You sort this, Peaches,” Spike said. “Going to put my boy to bed now.”

Angel may have grunted a reply of some sort, but Xander wasn’t really sure. It didn’t matter anyway, as Spike nearly carried him up to the lobby, and then up more flights of stairs until they were in their own room. Xander collapsed onto their big bed and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

 

“It’s his brother.”

Xander yawned hugely and Spike took advantage of the opportunity to stuff a forkful of barely-cooked bacon in Xander’s mouth. Xander chewed and grinned at him thankfully. Werewolfery was hungry work, it turned out. The three days a month when the moon held the strongest sway over him, he always felt like he could eat a horse. Literally. Bacon was good, too, though, especially when it was being fed to him by a beautiful, shirtless vampire whose hair was still in sleep-tossed curls.

Angel frowned at them and they ignored him, as they often did. He was still wearing his misbuttoned shirt and looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Spike shoved another mouthful of food into Xander, who smiled, well, wolfishly, and wished Angel would go away. Breakfast wasn’t the only thing he was hungry for. “Tasty,” Xander said, and Spiked leered happily back at him.

“Knock it off, you two. This is—“

Spike whirled to face Angel. Xander couldn’t see his vampire’s expression, but he was guessing it wasn’t friendly. “My boy needs feeding,” he growled. “If you want to natter on, we’ll listen, but be nice or bugger off.”

Angel made a long-suffering face—he was really good at that—and sighed. “Fine. Maybe someday you’ll figure out some things are more important than sex.”

“_Nothing_ is more important than what my Xan needs,” Spike replied, and a small shiver of joy ran through Xander’s body. He still found it hard to believe that Spike felt that way about him. Spike turned back towards Xander and scooped up a big spoonful of scrambled eggs. Mmm. Runny, with a dash of hot sauce. Just how Xander liked them.

Angel shook his head, but he walked farther into the room and sank onto the most uncomfortable chair in the room, a hard wooden thing that Xander thought of as the Punishment Seat. They kept it just for Angel, actually, and it was the one he always chose.

“Lamont’s still sleeping. Whatever happened to him, he looks like crap. Lindsey says Lamont’s his younger brother, and last he heard from him was several years ago, when Lamont was in high school in Texas. I don’t think he knows what’s going on.”

“Did you tell him what his baby brother looks like now?” Spike asked.

“No. I didn’t tell Lindsey he’s here, either.”

“So then what’s the scheme?” Spike lightly slapped at Xander’s hand as Xander reached for a piece of toast. Spike had decided that it was his personal mission to feed and generally baby Xander during Xander’s time of the month, and he couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. Not that Xander was especially inclined to try persuading him, because it was awfully nice to be fussed over like that. And in any case, Oz had said it would help strengthen Spike’s status as alpha for him to take charge of Xander, although when he said that he probably wasn’t picturing Spike hand-feeding bits of whole wheat with strawberry jam into Xander’s smiling mouth.

“I dunno,” Angel said. “We should get Lamont cleaned up, I guess. Then see if we can get more information out of him.” He scratched at the back of his head. “I’m really not comfortable letting him have the run of the place.”

“Could lock him up with the cowboy,” Spike said.

“Yeah, I guess so. I was hoping to keep them apart, though, at least until we know what’s going on. There’s no way Lindsey’s brother just accidentally showed up a few blocks from the Hyperion.”

“Use my cage,” Xander offered. He hadn’t needed it himself for several months.

“Good idea, pet.” Spike held out a glass for him, full to the brim with cold milk. The full-fat stuff, because he needed the extra calories during the full moon. There was a blue and white striped straw in the glass and Xander grinned at the thought of Spike going to the store and buying him drinking straws. He took a long, satisfying slurp.

“Yeah, okay,” Angel said, but he didn’t move.

Spike turned his head to look at him. “You’re knackered. Go have a bit of a kip. Xan and I can get him sorted.”

Angel thought for a moment, and then levered himself to his feet. “Thanks. I just need a couple hours.” He shambled out of the room, and then Spike grinned at Xander.

“Shower first, love?”

 

Their bathroom took up all of what had formerly been a single guest room. Xander had done it in Art Deco style, with tile in white and black and pale grayish aqua. He’d installed a deep pedestal sink with chrome fittings. The tub was oversized, roomy enough for the two of them, and the shower with its frosted glass surround was plenty big enough to share as well. He’d surprised his cold-blooded lover with a towel heater, a gift that had earned Xander an exhausting and thoroughly wonderful romp in the sheets.

Now, while Spike stripped and turned on the tap, Xander unbuckled his collar and set it on the wooden cabinet where they stored their towels. The collar was black leather like the leash, and inset with sharp, shiny spikes, of course. Wolfish Xander didn’t mind wearing it at all—it was his alpha’s mark, after all—and the rest of the month, sometimes Spike would wear it instead, which was nice, too. Oh, if Anya only knew the amount of cash Xander and Spike had dropped at their friendly neighborhood sex toy shop. They didn’t really need the toys—the sex was fantastic even when it was just their two bare bodies—but neither of them minded a little extra fun now and then.

“Pet?” Spike said. “Where are you in your head now?”

“Someplace nice,” Xander replied, stepping into the shower beside Spike.

“Would the rest of your body fancy following?”

“Mmm.” Xander couldn’t answer properly because he was nuzzling up against Spike’s wet shoulder, drawing the scent of the vampire deeply into his lungs. Gods, Spike always smelled so good. He wrapped his arms around Spike and clasped them in front of the vampire’s middle so that Spike’s body was pulled back, flush against his. His cock hardened against Spike’s ass and he couldn’t help but moan a little.

“In the mood for some dessert, pet?” Spike’s voice was full of humor.

“Mmm,” Xander said again, and he stuck his tongue out and licked along Spike’s jawline.

Now it was Spike’s turn to groan, and he tilted his head to give Xander better access. For several months, Xander hadn’t quite trusted himself to give Spike what he wanted, not when the moon was full, anyhow, but now he knew he could control himself enough to bite only hard enough to make his lover scream with pleasure, and no more.

He began with just a tiny nibble. Spike undulated against him and whimpered softly. “In,” he said, his voice gone deep and gravelly. “Want you in.”

Xander looked around for some lube. Goddammit, he knew there was a bottle somewhere nearby! But then Spike reached behind himself with his left hand and grasped Xander’s cock, and he guided it between his cheeks.

Oh. Already slicked, the sneaky bastard. You’d think Xander was predictable or something.

Spike wiggled a little and Xander moved his hands down to rest on Spike’s hips. They both gasped and sighed as Xander breached the tight ring of muscle and then slowly sank deeper.

Xander didn’t try to hold back or take it slow. They really did need to deal with Lamont, and anyway, there’d always be time later to make love more leisurely. Now, Spike moved both his hands back to Xander’s ass and they moved their hips in tandem, both making panting little grunt noises. Xander’s fingertips dug into Spike’s hipbones, creating bruises he could kiss better later.

With his eye clenched tightly closed, Xander was lost now, lost in the cool tightness that clenched around him and the hard, water-warmed body that strained against him, and the sound of their breaths echoing and mingling with the splashes, and the scent of his lover’s arousal. All he needed was taste, and when Spike choked out his name—“Xan!”—Xander opened his mouth wide and bit hard at Spike’s carotid with his blunt teeth. Coppery sweetness trickled onto his palate and Spike bucked hard and yelled. Just as the scent of semen hit Xander’s nostrils he came, too, thrashing his hips quickly and still sucking on the small wound he’d made.

When he stilled, Spike slipped off of him and turned around, then drew him against himself for a kiss. Spike shuddered again when his tongue found the flavor of his own blood in Xander’s mouth. And then they hung limply in one another’s arms, allowing the steaming water to sluice off their heads and shoulders and backs.

Eventually, they managed to get scrubbed and shampooed. Xander turned off the tap and they dried quickly before pulling on some clothes. Xander always wore his oldest, most ragged clothing during the full moon, in case the change hit him before he had the chance to undress. It had only taken one favorite shirt ruined to teach him that lesson. Spike, of course, pulled on his usual black jeans and black tee, but this time he also shrugged into a silky blue button-down Xander had bought him, which matched his eyes exactly.

 

Lamont was awake when they went into his room, huddled miserably under the dusty blankets. He looked alarmed when he saw them, but not terrified. And he definitely looked interested in the tray of food Xander was carrying.

He made a mess while he was eating. His hands just didn’t work well for grasping things, and he didn’t appear to be very used to managing with them, which made Xander suspect that whatever happened to him, had happened recently. In any case, though, he managed to get some breakfast inside himself, and then he lay there patiently while Spike and Xander cleaned him up and bandaged his wounds. Looking more carefully, Xander could see now that Lamont also had vivid bruises and deep lacerations around his wrists and ankles, clearly the result of having been bound.

They didn’t bother to ask him any questions as they worked on him. Angel would be pissed if he missed anything, and neither of them felt in the mood for laborious interrogation anyhow. So they just wiped him down and patched him up, and then the three of them looked at one another.

Finally, Spike asked, “Do you know who we are?”

Lamont shook his head.

“’M called Spike. ‘M a vampire, yeah?”

Lamont looked unhappy but not altogether surprised.

“I have a soul. Doesn’t mean I don’t have fangs, though, and I use them if necessary, right?”

Lamont nodded.

“My boy here is Xander.”

“Werewolf,” Xander added helpfully.

Spike, who was standing beside Xander at the bedside, put a proprietary arm around Xander’s waist. “_My_ wolf, yeah? You be nice to him or you answer to me.”

Xander really didn’t need protection like that. He could hold his own nearly as well as Spike, actually. But he didn’t mind because it was nice to feel like someone treasured him. This was one case of demon possession he wholeheartedly embraced.

Lamont nodded again at Spike’s warning.

“All right, then. We’re going to get you sorted. But in the meantime, we can’t have you just running about the place, can we?”

Lamont looked pointedly down at his own feet. Running was probably not in the cards for him anyway. Xander didn’t contradict Spike, though; he just let him keep talking.

“We’ve got a place to keep you. You’ll be safe there, and comfortable, until we suss out what’s going on with you.”

The creature didn’t look thrilled about it, but he didn’t resist as Spike picked him up and then carried him into their old room, where the cage was. Xander had already put some clean blankets inside. As Lamont looked around the cage, his eyes huge, Spike set him inside and then locked the door. Xander brought him the remote control. “Think you can work it?” Xander asked.

Lamont poked at it with a spidery finger and then nodded.

“Okay, then,” Spike said. He was kneeling beside the cage. “We’ll chat later.”

Lamont nodded one more time. He seemed reasonably content, for now. And, in fact, he looked as shocked as Xander felt when, a second later, Lamont snatched Spike’s hand off the bar of the cage, yanked it inside, and then bit down hard.

Xander wasn’t sure whose screaming it was that brought Angel running, his or Spike’s or Lamont’s. Maybe it was all three. In any case he came tearing into the room at top speed, wearing only a pair of maroon silk boxers, which would have been kind of amusing under very different circumstances.

Xander was certainly not amused now.

Instead, he was trying desperately but without any success to figure out how to help Spike. Spike was writhing on the ground and shrieking in agony. Xander couldn’t see anything wrong with him, other than the nearly inconsequential toothmarks on his hand, and yet the vampire was arching his back and flailing his limbs, and his mouth was stretched in a rictus of pain. His eyes were wide open, the pupils nearly eclipsing the blue irises. Worst of all, though—and the rest was bad enough—Spike smelled _wrong_.

“What the fuck!” Angel shouted, adding his voice to the general ruckus.

“Angel! Help!”

Angel ignored the cries coming from the cage and rushed to Xander and Spike. At this point, Xander was actually straddling Spike, trying to hold him still so Xander could get a better look, but Spike was strong, and it was like trying to ride one of those mechanical bulls, only worse, because the bulls didn’t scream in pain, and Xander wasn’t in love with them.

Angel pushed Xander off and climbed on top Spike himself, and with his greater weight and strength was able to keep Spike pinned beneath him. Spike’s eyes wouldn’t focus, though, and he didn’t seem to be aware of anything other than whatever was hurting him.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Don’t know. Lamont bit his hand, and then he just started yelling and he smells like magic and I can’t figure out what’s going on. Oh, god, what’s wrong with him?”

By now, Spike had been shrieking long enough that his voice was hoarse. Then he seized once more, this time so violently that he actually managed to throw Angel off, and then went completely still. His eyes remained open, staring at nothing, and he wasn’t breathing, and he looked so absolutely and completely dead that Xander was almost overcome by panic. But Spike wasn’t dust, and that was a good sign, at least.

Dimly, Xander noticed that the room had gone silent and he glanced at the cage. The creature was gone, and in his place was a naked and battered man who appeared to be unconscious. He looked like a younger, less muscular version of Lindsey. Xander sniffed in his direction. The scent of the spell or whatever it was had faded almost entirely away. Now he just smelled of human and blood and urine, because he’d evidently pissed himself at some point in the proceedings.

Xander and Angel stared at each other, both of them wide-eyed and gaping with shock. In the end, it was Xander who recovered first.

                “I’m calling Willow,” he announced.

[Chapter Three](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/69343.html)


	3. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **Twice Bitten, Chapter 3/11** _

**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 3/11   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005ddac/)  
---  
  
****

CHAPTER THREE

 

He petted his beloved’s pale forehead, pushing back a stray curl or two. He wanted to cry. Already _had_ cried, actually, in front of Angel and everything, and that was really fucking humiliating, but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t fucking _fair_! After all Spike had been through last year—hell, after all Spike had been through for the last 150 years!—and all he was doing was trying to help some guy that Xander had found, and now here he was, motionless. Bespelled.

Willow hadn’t helped much. Maybe that was partly Xander’s fault at first, because he was so overcome with horror that he was pretty much babbling incoherently. Angel had finally taken the phone from him, surprisingly gently, and had tried to explain what was going on in somewhat calmer tones. Willow said she’d call Giles and they’d get right on it, but Xander wasn’t feeling optimistic. They hadn’t really given her much to work with.

Lamont was still out of it, so there was no help there. Angel had gone down to the basement for a while to see if he could extract any information from Lindsey. But he came back upstairs a couple hours later, his face desolate. He smelled faintly of Lindsey’s blood and fear, and Xander had a pretty good idea the questioning hadn’t been especially gentle. But Angel was convinced that Lindsey didn’t have a clue what was going on. He had demanded to see his brother, though—Angel showed Xander the piece of paper, on which the lawyer’s writing was so forceful he’d scored the paper—but that was out of the question right now.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, it would soon be sundown and it was the last night of the full moon, and there was no way Xander had the emotional stability right now to keep himself from going lobo. And all their cages were occupado.

Xander looked wearily at Angel. “You’re gonna need to chain me up,” he said.

“I thought you had things under control.”

“Normally, yeah. But not with Spike….” He swallowed. “Not this time.”

Angel sighed. “Okay. What do you want—“

“You still have those extra chains and stuff from Lindsey?”

“Yeah.”

“Use one of them to chain me to this pillar.” He’d left the support pillars intact when he tore down the walls to form their suite. He was fairly certain they were strong enough to hold him. “You’re gonna need a collar. Not my usual one. I could probably tear the leather.”

“I have a metal one in the basement.”

Xander lifted his brows slightly at that but didn’t comment. “Okay, fine.”

“How long a chain?”

Xander measured the distance with his eyes. “Fifteen feet? That’ll keep me in the room, but I want to be able to reach Spike.”

“You won’t hurt him?”

Xander looked down at his vampire, suddenly so vulnerable. “No,” he said shortly.

It was almost dusk, so Angel hurried down to gather his bondage gear. When he came back up, Xander had taken off everything but his boxers, and he was waiting. He stood still as Angel fastened the iron around his neck. His skin itched and rippled as if it had fur on the inside, and his bones and jaw ached. Not much longer now.

“Uh, Angel? Stay away from me until morning, okay?”

Angel looked slightly hurt, but he nodded. Really, Xander in wolf-form was fine around Angel now, at least as long as Angel didn’t come too close to Spike. But in the mood he was in, Xander didn’t trust himself, and he didn’t want to risk getting into a tussle with Angel. That would certainly end up with both of them seriously injured, at least.

Angel left the room and shut the door behind himself. Only a few minutes later, ripping, horrible pain shot through Xander’s body. He dropped to the floor and curled into a ball and waited for the change to be complete. Christ! It was so much easier to go through this with Spike at his side, stroking him and humming and calling him all the sweet names he never used at any other time. It was like he was being stretched on the rack and flayed at the same time. He yelled and swore until his mouth could no longer form words, and then he just howled.

It always seemed like it took days to change, but he knew it really lasted only minutes. When it was over, he lay on the cool floor, panting heavily, until he noticed the delicious scent of blood. He lifted his head up and looked around him. Several feet away, between him and the door, a large plastic tarp had appeared. On top of that was a big hunk of bone and meat. His stomach growled and he walked over to it. Cow.

Usually, his alpha made sure he had something to eat when he changed, but his alpha was…oh, no. Over on the bed. Hurt.

Xander looked back and forth between the bed and the food, whining softly. A voice came to him from outside the closed door: “Eat first, Xander. He’s okay for now.”

Ah. The other one. His head was always especially muddled right after he shifted, and his feelings for Angel were complicated at best. But he was just rational enough to realize that it must have been Angel who left him the meat, and that the big vampire was probably right. He needed to be strong for his Spike.

Xander ripped savagely into his meal, tearing off big chunks and practically swallowing them whole. He didn’t stop this time to gnaw on the bone, to feel it crack satisfyingly between his jaws and to lick out the tasty marrow. He merely pulled off as much of the flesh as he could, then ran a long tongue over his muzzle. His hunger sated for now, he trotted quickly to the bed and leaped beside Spike.

The vampire was still unmoving, cold as any corpse. He smelled _wrong_, and Xander whimpered and snuffled at him, searching for traces of the familiar scent of his alpha. They were there, but just barely. Xander whimpered again and licked at Spike’s face, but there was no response. So he did the only thing he could: he curled up next to Spike, keeping his hot, furry body as much in contact with Spike as possible. He rested his chin on Spike’s chest and waited.

 

Still mostly asleep, he felt fingers lightly clutching his hair and hard muscles moving beneath him, and he wondered whether maybe Spike would make him French toast this morning, mmm, with lots of maple syrup, and some greasy sausages, and….

And then he woke up enough to remember.

He sat up abruptly. His immediate response was relief because Spike’s eyes were open and looking at him. But it only took him a split-second more for the relief to be replaced by abject horror.

Something was wrong with Spike.

His skin was more than pale, it was the bluish-white of skim milk. His hair was the color of a robin’s egg. His beautiful features were skewed as if by a reflection in a funhouse mirror. Nothing was symmetrical. He had the right number of fingers and toes, but each digit was bent and twisted like it was badly broken, and the joints of his arms and legs were misshapen.

He was breathing now, quick shallow breaths that rattled in his chest. His eyes were wide and terrified.

Xander managed to choke out a single word: “Spike?”

“Xan. Please. Help.” Spike was hard to understand, the language garbled as if his tongue was too slow and too thick.

“Oh, gods, Spike, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Spike struggled to sit up, and he reached out a single shaking arm toward Xander. “Can’t…please…can’t….” And then, to Xander’s absolute dismay, Spike began to cry. His shoulders shook and great, painful-sounding sobs tore from his throat, and fat tears coursed down his twisted face.

Xander gathered him in his arms, holding him tight. Spike clutched back so hard Xander could barely breathe. He buried his face in the crook of Xander’s neck and wailed and Xander rocked him and smoothed at his hair. “It’s okay,” Xander crooned. “Everything will be all right.” He pretended that he had confidence that this was true.

They huddled together for a long time, as Xander tried to ignore his bursting bladder and the grief and worry that were washing through him. Eventually, though, Spike’s crying subsided, and then he was just collapsed against Xander, snuffling softly.

“Spike?” Xander whispered.

Spike pulled slightly away so he could look at Xander’s face. His distorted eyes were red and still brimming with tears. “Help,” he said in the tiniest voice imaginable.

Xander swallowed thickly. “Do you know what’s wrong?”

“Can’t…head….” Spike struck his forehead hard with the heel of his hand. “Can’t. Broke.”

“Does it hurt?”

Spike shook his head, and then hit it again. “No. Slow.” He grimaced. “Thick.” He was going to hit himself once again, so Xander caught his wrist and held it tight.

“You’re having trouble thinking straight?”

Spike frowned like he was processing Xander’s question, and then nodded.

Xander stroked Spike’s face with his free hand. “Fuck. Are you…are you in pain?”

Spike thought again and then nodded and waved vaguely at his knees, then wiggled his fingers slightly.

“Okay,” Xander said. Outwardly, he was trying his damnedest to remain calm, while inwardly he was reeling. “We’ll deal. We’ll figure this out.”

Spike made a small, mournful sound that broke Xander’s heart.

Xander leaned forward and pressed his lips against Spike’s brow. “I love you. We’ll fix it.”

Spike looked as if he might begin crying again, and then Xander was just going to end up sobbing along with him. So he kissed Spike again, and stood. “I’ve gotta take a piss. And then…you must be hungry, right? I’ll heat you some blood.”

Spike gave a tiny nod. Xander used the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, and then pulled on his green sweats. Spike was still sitting on the edge of the bed, his head deeply bowed. It occurred to Xander that Spike probably wasn’t going to be able to manage his usual jeans with his deformed legs so, with a lump in his throat, he fished another pair of his sweats out of his dresser—gray, this time—and brought them over. “Want to put these on, sweetheart?”

Xander had to help him. His fingers wouldn’t cooperate and the tie at the waistband bewildered him. At least he could walk, although slowly and awkwardly and, judging by the look on his face, painfully as well. He settled in one of their kitchen chairs and Xander kissed him again and then brought him a mug of blood. When he had trouble holding the cup, Xander plunked a straw in it. Spike looked up at him with sad, glittering eyes.

Xander caressed his shoulder and then walked over to stare in the refrigerator. He had to eat or he’d be no good to anyone. Last month, Spike had made him pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse, with blueberries for eyes and noses and tiny little mousy fangs he cut from slivers of apple and dipped in strawberry jam. And then Xander had refused to eat them until he gave Spike a nice blowjob to show his appreciation for a lover who made him vampire rodent breakfasts and who could be so sweet and funny and scary and sexy and oh, god, here he was choking back tears again. He pulled out a carton of milk and three-day-old leftover pizza. He zapped the pizza for a few seconds and brought it over to the table.

Under normal circumstances Spike would never have allowed him to eat this for breakfast, but today Spike just sipped at his blood and stared at his twisted hands. Xander reached over to capture one of those hands in his own. “C’mon. We got through the csípés shit and the wolf thing, and you’ve made it through how many deaths and apocalypses? We’ll be all right.”

Spike shook his head slowly. He rubbed his free hand against his face. “Won’t…want me. Ugly. Stupid.”

Xander dropped his food and rushed around the table to kneel beside Spike. He reached up to cup Spike’s face in his palm. “I will _always_ want you, Spike, any way I can get you.”

Spike sighed heavily and looked like he was crafting a reply, but then startled when there was a knock at the door.

“Spike? Xander?”

“Come in.” When Xander had first moved to the Hyperion, Angel used to barge right on into their room without knocking. Then, predictably, he’d caught them very much en flagrante, and he’d immediately mended his ways.

Angel came inside somewhat hesitantly, as if he was afraid of what he’d discover. Nevertheless, when he caught sight of Spike he gasped and froze. Spike, on the other hand, jumped to his feet and then stumbled around the table until he was pretty much cowering behind Xander. Xander stood and put his arms around Spike, allowing the vampire to hide his face against Xander’s chest. Xander could feel him trembling.

“What the fuck?” Angel said.

“He woke up like this,” Xander replied, keeping his voice carefully modulated. “And…and he’s having trouble thinking clearly, too.”

“Shit.”

“Do you know what this is, Angel?”

But Angel shook his head. “No. Shit, Xander—“

“Shh.” Xander glared at him as he stroked the back of Spike’s head. He didn’t want to upset him more than necessary.

Angel rubbed his face hard with both hands. “Lamont’s awake. Maybe he has some answers.”

“Is he still in the cage?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Xander wolfed down the rest of his food and made sure Spike drained his blood as well. Then they all trooped next door. Spike held Xander’s hand and his steps were ungainly.

Lamont was pressed against the back of the cage with his arms crossed protectively over his chest. Xander had to close his eye and breathe deeply to remain calm, when what he really wanted to do was drag the bastard out of there and tear him to shreds. It was probably just as well that he’d built the cage as sturdily as he had, because if he couldn’t break out in wolf form, then he couldn’t break in in human form and kill Lamont.

Still, he dropped Spike’s hand and stomped over and grabbed the bars in his fists. “What the fuck did you do to him?”

Lamont cringed even farther away. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he said in a very small voice.

“Fucking fix it!”

“I don’t know how.”

Xander growled and only Angel’s big hand on his shoulder kept him from changing to a wolf right then and there. “Xander, let me, okay?”

And wasn’t that great? The mass-murdering vampire once known as the Scourge of Europe was the voice of reason now. But Xander stepped away and toward Spike, who was slumped against one wall. Xander sank to the floor and Spike instantly collapsed into his lap. He sucked at his favorite spot on Xander’s neck then stopped and looked at Xander, as if to check whether it was all right. Xander gently pressed Spike’s head back into place and Spike relaxed a little against him.

Xander watched as Angel vamped out. Lamont squeaked. In his very most Angelusy voice, with a hint of brogue and everything, Angel said, “Now, boy. You’re going to tell us your story. And you’re going to satisfy all of us with it, or else we’ll be picking our teeth with your bones. Follow?”

Lamont squeaked again and nodded vigorously.

Angel dragged a chair over and smiled evilly at the man, fangs flashing. “Go ahead, boy.”

Lamont suddenly looked very young. “Can…can I have some water first? Please? I ain’t had any, and—“

Angel growled. “Drink it from the toilet.”

Lamont blinked at him, then knee-walked over to the toilet. He scooped several handfuls of liquid into his mouth, and then scooted back to his former spot.

“Getting impatient.”

“I…uh…I was lookin’ for my brother. Lindsey.”

Spike growled almost inaudibly against Xander’s skin.

“He’s a lawyer, and he works…well, he used to work for this fancy law firm. Wolfram and Hart. I ain’t heard from him in years, and I wanted…I just wanted to see him, you know? So I came to LA, and I found out somethin’ had happened to that firm, and they ain’t here no more.”

Angel smiled in a way that made Lamont cringe.

“I Googled them. Found out they still had offices in other cities. It even turned out they have one pretty close to home, in Dallas. I went back there to see if somebody could help me track down Linds. The folks there got real interested in me when they found out who I was. Brought me into some hotshot’s office, bigger’n my old apartment. He gave me some fancy liquor and asked me a lotta questions. And finally, this guy says Linds ain’t workin’ for them no more, but he can help me find him.”

He had been speaking very quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth so fast it was hard to catch them. But now he paused and shuddered.

“He got on his phone and talked to someone, and a few minutes later these two dudes came in. They was really tall and skinny, and they was wearing weird clothes, like these long sort of cape things. And they didn’t look right. Somethin’ wrong with their faces. They looked at me with their piggy li’l eyes and said a bunch of stuff in some language I ain’t never heard before. All hissy and spitty, like an angry tomcat.”

“And then?”

“They touched me with a big ol’ purply rock. Then it _hurt_. Like I was on fire or somethin’. And they just watched me while I screamed and screamed, and when it was over…well, you saw what I turned into.”

Spike whimpered and Xander kissed him.

“The boss-man told me they was gonna take me to where Lindsey was. And he said when I got there, I was supposed to find a vampire with a soul. An’ I had to bite him, or I’d be stuck like that forever.”

“You bit the wrong vamp, fucktard!” Xander yelled.

Lamont looked at him in confusion. “But…but he told me he had a soul.”

Angel snarled at him. “He does. So do I. They sent you after me.”

“I’m…I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”

“So you think it would have been okay if you’d bit me instead, boy?”

“No! But…I didn’t have no choice,” Lamont whined.

“There’s always a choice.”

“They tied me up real tight and threw me in an airplane. Durin’ the flight, these guys…they hurt me real bad. I don’t know why—I couldn’t hardly even move or nothin’. So we landed and they put me in the trunk of a car. When the car stopped, they dragged me out, and one of ‘em—he was huge, biggest guy I’ve ever seen—pointed down the block to a big old hotel. Told me Linds and the vamp were in there. They cut the ropes off me and drove away real fast.”

Angel leaned in close to the bars. In a low voice, he said, “Xander and Spike said they found you a way from here. How’d you get there?”

“I was scared. Didn’t want to meet no vampire. Thought I’d find help somewhere. But I couldn’t walk. Couldn’t even stand. Had to crawl, and there was nobody around, and I hurt so much. Finally collapsed in that alley.”

“Where Xander and Spike thought to save you. And this is how you repaid them.” Angel gestured toward Spike.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t…didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to stay a monster.”

“You’re still a monster,” Xander said. He helped Spike stand and led him back to their suite.

   
[Chapter Four](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/69392.html)  
 

  



	4. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 4/11**_

**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 4/11   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005ddac/)  
---  
  
****

CHAPTER FOUR

 

Spike huddled against him, small and fragile. Sometimes he whimpered a little in pain or distress, but mostly he suckled on Xander’s neck and kept his eyes squeezed tightly closed as if to shut out the world. Xander wanted to pace and shout, wanted to go shake answers out of Lamont, but instead he held Spike tight and prayed for his phone to ring with good news.

Instead, Angel knocked and then strode in, as angry as Xander had ever seen him. Xander was reminded again that the big vampire had been genuinely upset when Spike was missing in Chicago. Despite appearances to the contrary, he really did care about his grandchilde.

“He doesn’t know anything else,” Angel growled. “I’m going to go to Dallas and—“

“And get yourself dusted? Or hexed? They were gunning for you. I don’t think they’re just gonna hand over the cure.”

Angel growled again, but didn’t argue with Xander’s logic. He collapsed heavily into the Punishment Seat and buried his face in his hands. Spike moaned softly and twitched in Xander’s arms.

Then, suddenly, Angel lurched to his feet and stomped over to the couch. He stuck his arm out a few inches in front of Spike. “Bite me!” he commanded.

Spike burrowed more into Xander’s side, hiding his face against Xander’s neck.

“Bite me, Spike!” Angel repeated.

“You’re scaring him, Deadboy. Back off.” Xander gave a low growl of his own.

Angel sighed heavily and moved back a step. “Look. Spike got fucked up when Lamont bit him, but Lamont got cured. So maybe if Spike bites me….”

Xander mulled this over. It made some sense, and there was justice in it, besides, since Angel had been the intended target anyway. And if someone had to be all mangled, Xander would rather it not be his own beloved vampire. But still, and even though he was never much of an Angel fan, it didn’t seem right to just pass the misfortune on to him, even if he was willing to martyr himself. Besides, if they were going to have to tangle with Wolfram and Hart, Xander wanted Angel in good shape.

He had another idea, though. “Why doesn’t Spike just bite Lamont back?” His conscience didn’t twinge at all at the thought of re-magicking the younger McDonald.

Angel nodded and let his arm drop. “Okay. Wait here.”

Xander did wait, smoothing at Spike’s tousled blue curls as Angel clomped out of the suite and then, a few minutes later, returned. He was dragging Lamont, who was still naked and was now heavily trussed in chains, and who looked about ready to piss himself in terror.

Spike cringed and Xander snarled, and Angel nearly had to carry Lamont, but the vampire managed to get the very unwilling human squished between his own large body and the couch. “Bite him,” said Angel. Lamont squeaked.

When Spike didn’t move, Xander whispered into his ear, “C’mon, honey. Take a nice big chunk out of the bastard.”

Spike puffed out a breath of air against Xander’s skin and then twisted his face around to look at Lamont. “Wanker,” he said, his voice garbled but understandable. Then, without bothering to drop his fangs, he leaned over and latched his teeth hard into the man’s shoulder.

Lamont shouted, “No!” and tried to get away, but Angel held him firmly. Spike sort of gnawed at him a moment more and then retreated back against Xander. They all waited expectantly.

Nothing happened.

When it was clear that neither Spike or Lamont was going to change, they all slumped, three of them dejection and one in relief. “Maybe…maybe he can’t be reinfected once he’s had it already. Kind of like the chicken pox,” Xander finally said.

“Fuck,” was Angel’s response, and Spike buried his face against Xander again. Once again, Xander comforted Spike wordlessly while Angel took a much more eager Lamont back to the cage.

When Angel came back, his face held a look of purpose. “Let’s try Lindsey,” he said.

Xander wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Well, it’d hurt Lindsey to try, but Xander didn’t especially mind that. He’d be happy to sink his own teeth into the fucker if he had half an excuse. So he urged Spike to his feet, and the three of them walked slowly down to the basement. Spike held Xander’s hand hard enough that it hurt.

Lindsey was hunched miserably on his mattress, his face bruised and bloodied. When he caught sight of Spike, though, his eyes grew huge, and Xander didn’t have to read lips to know that their prisoner was swearing silently.

“Your brother did this to him,” Angel said, his voice soft and menacing.

Xander could taste the fear that rolled off of Lindsey as the man lurched off of his bed and back against the far corner of his cell. He held his hands up, palms out, as high as his chains would permit, and he frantically shook his head. His hair had grown very long and it swung around his pale, bearded face.

“This was courtesy of your former employers. Do you know what it is?”

Lindsey’s eyes got impossibly wider, and he shook his head emphatically.

“Little brother’s upstairs in a cage, Linds, and I’m not too pleased with him as it is. Want to rethink your answer?”

Lindsey dropped to his knees in supplication and shook his head some more. It was hard for Xander to sense whether the man was lying now, since his body was already shaking in terror, but he was fairly certain Lindsey honestly didn’t know what had been done to Spike.

Spike sagged against Xander, whether for physical or emotional support Xander couldn’t tell. Maybe both. In any case, Xander clutched him and glared at the former lawyer.

“Come here,” Angel said. His voice was as flat as his eyes.

Lindsey swallowed audibly and appeared to think it over. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to escape, and Angel would only be angrier if he had to go into the cell and get him. Awkwardly, he rose to his feet, and then he shuffled to the bars. His breaths were harsh and rapid.

Angel unlocked the cell door and, as soon as Lindsey was within his reach, grabbed him by his hair. He propelled him toward Spike and Xander, as Lindsey automatically struggled to stay away. Of course, his struggles were useless, and then the bound, shivering man was inches away.

“Bite him before I do, sweetheart,” Xander rumbled.

Lindsey stiffened in Angel’s grip, but Angel tugged him even closer until he was nearly touching them. Spike made a sound—something desperate and feral—and, again without vamping out, latched his teeth onto Lindsey’s bicep.

Lindsey howled silently and Spike collapsed against Xander. A second later, he was howling, too, only loudly, and Xander eased him to the floor. As heartbreaking as his lover’s shrieks were, Xander was also relieved, because this time something was obviously happening, as both Spike and Lindsey shook and seized on the cold cement. Xander and Angel watched anxiously for a few moments, and then Angel dragged Lindsey back into the cage and slammed the door shut. Xander knelt beside Spike, stroking his skin, murmuring soothing words.

It was better this time. Spike quieted and stilled within a few moments. And then, as Xander let out a long, relieved breath, the unconscious vampire slowly morphed into his familiar shape, symmetrical and perfect.

Lindsey was still clearly in pain, but Xander couldn’t bring himself to care. He stood and bent and gathered Spike into his arms.

“I can carry him,” Angel said.

“I’ll do it,” replied Xander, maybe more harshly than necessary, but he just wanted to get Spike upstairs, and tucked into their bed, where Xander could wrap himself around him and warm his chill flesh. Besides, it wasn’t the first time he’d carried Spike.

He didn’t know whether Angel stayed to watch Lindsey. He simply trudged up the stairs, across the lobby, and then up endless more stairs until he came to their suite. He was huffing and puffing by then. Fortunately, the door was open, so he entered, kicked it shut behind him, and then gently lay Spike on their rumpled sheets.

Spike was still out of it, but at least his face looked peaceful. He looked, in fact, absurdly young, and Xander planted a kiss on his unlined forehead before stripping out of his sweats and tee, climbing in beside him, and pulling the blankets over them both.

 

“Pet.”

He was trying out for the swim team again, or at least trying to, but the pool was bone-dry and his miniscule Speedos had disappeared. Along the side, Buffy and Cordelia were shouting a cheer—“Two, four, six, nine, Doughnut Boy is really fine!”—while a tweedy Giles and overalled Willow took notes. Spike was there in his black-dustered glory, swiping pieces of cheese off of a platter held by Principal Snyder. Lindsey and Lamont were waving to him from perches atop the diving board. And nobody except him seemed to notice the pack of—wolves? Hyenas? He wasn’t sure—that was howling from the bleachers.

“Pet.” Something was grabbing at his shoulder. He swatted at it, determined to jump into the empty pool. But then someone was kissing his nose, and it was Larry, and he sputtered, and….

“Spike,” he complained sleepily. Then his brain woke enough to register what was going on, and his bleary eyes shot open. “Spike!” he cried.

“Who’d you expect to wake up beside?” Spike’s voice was clear and full of humor.

Xander grabbed his shoulders and looked him up and down. He was still wearing Xander’s gray sweats, but his torso was bare and as beautiful as usual. “Gods, Spike! Are you feeling okay? Is everything all right? Are you hurting anywhere? How about your head?”

“Love, you’re making my head spin with all the questions at once.” Spike reached up and gently stroked Xander’s face. “I’m fine. All mended.”

“Oh, merciful Zeus!” Xander almost melted in relief, and he and Spike rested their foreheads together.

“Like me better now that I’m pretty again?” Spike whispered.

“Spike, I’d love you no matter how you looked. But to see you hurting like that, and with your brain all muddled….” Even now, his voice caught with emotion.

“’S all right, Xan. You got me sorted again.”

“Me and Angel.”

Spike made a noncommittal sound.

“We ought to go tell him you’re okay.”

“Wanker can wait. Only want you now.”

A few minutes later they’d gathered the strength for a long, tender kiss. That kiss was gradually building in intensity and was about to be joined by a little hand action south of the border when a loud pounding sounded on their door.

“Bugger,” murmured Spike, pulling slightly away.

“Come in,” Xander called.

The door opened and Angel came in. Plain relief flashed across his face as he saw Spike sitting up and smirking at him, but it was quickly chased away by his more usual expression of annoyance. “Back to the usual,” he grumbled.

“Jealous?” Spike said. “Don’t know what my boy thinks, but I might—“

Xander swatted him. For all his blustering and brooding, Angel was there when they needed him. And, it occurred to Xander, they were all the guy had, and later when he had time he might actually find himself feeling sorry for Angel, and wasn’t that a strange turn of events? But now he poked Spike, who was still chuckling, and said, “He’s all better. How’s Lindsey?”

“Twisted,” replied Angel, with no small bit of satisfaction. “Now on the outside, too.”

“So…what are we going to do?”

Angel shrugged. “Nothing. Spike’s fine. I’ll probably throw Lamont down with his brother. They’re harmless now.”

“You can’t keep him like that.” Spike’s voice was low and serious.

“Why not? Lindsey’s managed a year down there, and now they’ll have each other for company. It’s better than anything they planned for us.”

Spike shook his head. “Keep ‘em locked up, that’s fine. But we can’t let the lawyer stay hexed.”

“Why not?” Angel repeated.

“It’s…. _Nobody_ deserves that.” Spike shuddered and Xander’s throat felt tight. “Better just to kill him, Liam.”

Angel looked at him gravely.

“What do you want to do, Spike?” Xander asked.

Spike sighed loudly. “I expect we need to find a way to unmagic the pillock.”

 

As always, Willow was Xander’s go-to witch. Xander dialed her number as soon as the time difference permitted. He gave her a quick rundown of the most recent events.

“Oh, goddess, Xan, I’m glad that Spike’s better.” She sounded sincere. She still wasn’t exactly thrilled over the direction Xander’s life had taken, but over the last several months she’d become first resigned to the Spikiness of it and, more recently, maybe even happy for them.

“Me, too, Will. But now Lindsey’s got the curse, or whatever it is, and I guess we have to help him. Have you learned anything?”

“Not yet, sorry. But now that I know it’s contagious, that might be helpful, ‘cause not many magics work that way. I’ll dig around some more, okay?”

“Thanks. And maybe…this thing with Wolfram and Hart is getting old, you know? I’m getting really tired of Spike getting zapped because of them. Do you think there’s some way to…I don’t know…ward him? Or keep them away?”

“Gosh, I don’t know. That’s tricky, Xan. People—or vamp-people—they’re not like buildings.”

He laughed and glanced at Spike, who was standing in the bathroom wearing only a black t-shirt, gelling his hair and humming to himself. “No, definitely not like buildings.”

“But I’ll see if I can figure anything out, ‘kay?”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you, Miss Rosenberg.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Harris.”

They spent a few more minutes chatting about Buffy and the baby and Giles, who she thought had been acting strangely wiggy lately, and then they hung up. Spike was dressed by then and sitting at the table in their small kitchenette, sipping from a red and black mug.

“Red doesn’t know anything?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

“I was thinking…why not bring in a backup?”

“Huh?”

“Ring up your wizard friend in Chicago.”

Xander was dumbfounded. “Vega? You want me to talk to Danny Vega? The same guy whose heart you were threatening to rip out?”

Spike shrugged. “I reckon it’s safe enough from this distance. Wanker can’t molest you from two time zones away.”

Xander sat at the table, too, opposite Spike. “You really want to cure Lindsey, don’t you?”

Spike closed his eyes and nodded once. “It was bloody horrible, pet,” he murmured.

Xander captured Spike’s free hand in his and squeezed. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t found him—“

“Not. Your. Fault.” Spike put down his mug to cover Xander’s hand with his. “Ring your wizard.”

Xander reached for his phone. It was an iPhone that Spike had bought him a few weeks earlier and given to him already loaded with a large selection of late 70’s punk. Spike had chosen a ringtone as well: Warren Zevon, of course, and it made Xander laugh, although he liked to point out that the werewolf was from Sunnydale, and it was the vampire who was from London. Now, he happily used it to go online and search for the number for Vega’s shop.

As he scrolled, Spike said, “He won’t be able to help with the Wolfram and Hart bit, you know.”

Xander paused and looked at him. “Why not?”

“Pet, those tossers are old and powerful. Look what it cost when Angel went up against them. And he had years to prepare for the battle. In the end, all we did was evict them from the west coast. They’re still strong and happy everywhere else, as our mate Lamont has demonstrated.”

“I don’t want to try to destroy them, Spike. I just want them to stay away from you. And Angel, because they seem to sort of keep missing him and getting you.”

Spike snorted. “Luck of the Irish, yeah?”

“Well, there must be some other good guys somewhere else they can pick on for a while.”

Spike gave him that look. It meant, “I love you but you are only a whelp and I’m an ancient vampire and know better than you.” Xander gave him back the look that said, “I love you too and I know you’re older but I’m really stubborn and I’m going to try anyway.” Then Spike rolled his eyes and Xander dialed Chicago.

“Vega’s Books,” said a familiar voice.

Spike’s eyes narrowed and his jaw worked—he could hear just fine—but he waved at Xander impatiently.

“Uh, Danny? This is Xander Harris. I don’t know if you remember me—“

“Xander! How are you doing? What happened with you and Spike?”

“Um…we had sort of an interesting trip back to LA, but we’re fine.”

“’We.’ You two are ‘we’, huh?”

“Yeah, we are.” Spike looked smug.

“That’s great, Xander. A loss for me, but I’m happy for you.” Vega sounded sincere, anyway. “And the spell?”

“It wore off.”

“Fantastic! How about Angel?”

“We found him. That was also…sort of interesting. He’s okay now. Your presents came in handy, by the way. Thanks.”

“It was the least I could do.”

“Actually, I was hoping maybe you could do a little more for us, maybe.”

Vega’s response was quick and sharp. “Are you in trouble again?”

Xander couldn’t help but laugh. “Man, I’m always in trouble. But yeah, we have a new problem.”

“How can I help?”

It took a while to fill the wizard in on what had happened. Xander let it slip that he’d become a werewolf, and Vega was clearly shocked and upset until Xander made it clear that he didn’t especially view that particular accident as an unhappy one. Spike fidgeted impatiently while Xander talked, first noisily slurping his blood and then doodling little pictures of punctured magicians in the margin of a take-out menu from Pearl of the Orient.

Vega listened carefully, occasionally making small sounds or asking a question. When Xander was finally done talking, the wizard said, “Wow. You lead an interesting life, Xander Harris.”

“Yeah, well, I’m hardly ever bored.”

Vega didn’t know what Lamont had done to them either, but he promised he’d look into it right away. As for the evil lawyer problem, he’d heard of them, of course, and didn’t sound optimistic about being able to help much in that department, but he said he’d try. When Xander disconnected, he felt slightly better, knowing he had two magic-types on the case.

 

It was more or less a waiting game after that. That was okay. Xander and Spike could entertain each other just fine, thank you very much. Sometimes Xander wondered if becoming a werewolf had ramped up his libido, or if it was just a side-effect of living with a gorgeous, sexy, nearly insatiable vampire. He wondered, but he didn’t really care which it was.

They had a few of their usual calls for help. A couple vamps eating people in Compton. A nest of Ornlechi seducing teenagers in Irvine. Three clans of Pah’h’tls at war with each other in Laguna Niguel. Just normal life in LA. They took care of the problems and everyone went momentarily back to their humdrum existences.

Spike was anxious and moody, though—well, moodier than usual—clearly distracted by their problem in the basement. Killing or shagging got his mind off it for a while, but Xander could tell when his lover’s thoughts turned back to Lindsey and what had become of him.

Xander had reminded Angel of his plan to lock Lamont in with his brother, and Spike had immediately supported the idea. Angel was a little hesitant, but Xander pointed out that his cage wasn’t really meant for long-term occupancy, and it was kind of a pain having to feed prisoners in two separate areas. Plus, Lindsey was a mess, unable to feed or care for himself very well with his mangled hands, and Xander figured Lamont could help. Besides, Lindsey still couldn’t speak, and it didn’t seem very likely they’d be able to cause any trouble together.

So Angel dragged the terrified younger McDonald out of the cage and down all the stairs and into the basement. Lamont wailed when he saw Lindsey, and Lindsey looked even more scared than usual. When Angel shoved Lamont into the cell, the brothers clutched at each other, and, for the first time, Xander actually felt kind of sorry for the bastards. Kind of.

Angel scowled at the captives. “Neither of you sons of a bitch deserve it, but Xander and Spike are trying to figure out how to undo the hex. If either of you have any information to share, now would be a really good time for it.”

Lindsey blinked at Xander and Spike in surprise, his too-big eyes still a pretty blue color, but now his skin was, too. Then he shook his head slowly, sorrowfully.

“I don’t know nothin’ I ain’t already told you,” Lamont said. “I don’t—God, please don’t leave him like this!”

“You would have left me like that. Or Angel,” Spike said, his voice low and menacing.

“I know. I’m sorry!” Lamont was still crying and he used his arm to wipe the snot from under his nose.

So the brothers remained in the basement. Three times a day someone brought them food. The prisoners seemed to spend most of their time hunched on the mattress, staring dully at the walls or Lamont talking quietly. Spike and Angel used their vamp hearing to spy on the one-way conversation, but it was mostly about their hometown, and who’d gotten who pregnant or ended up in jail or crashed their pickup. Nothing important.

Nearly two weeks passed like this, and then, one evening as Spike and Xander were curled together in a just-woken, post-coital torpor, Xander’s phone buzzed: “He’s the hairy-handed gent who ran amok in Kent….” Xander grabbed it and glanced at the number.

“Vega!” he said, sitting up abruptly. Spike pulled himself away slightly, frowned a little, and then cocked his head to listen.

“Hey, Xander. How are you doing?”

“I’m good.”

“No disasters this week?”

“Don’t jinx me, please.”

Vega chuckled. “Well, I have some news for you about your mystery spell.”

“Yeah? What? How do we get rid of it?”

“Hang on! Okay, it’s not strictly a spell, actually. It’s sort of a…mystical virus. It’s called the Blight of Karthos and it’s really rare.”

It had a name, though. That had to be a good thing, Xander thought. “So how do we cure it? Mystical penicillin?”

Vega’s sigh was loud, even two thousand miles away. “No. No magic pills, I’m afraid.”

Of course not. “So?”

“Only two ways to get rid of it. You can pass it on to someone else who hasn’t already had it. Or you can destroy its original source.”

“Which is?”

“The Stone of Karthos.”

Xander and Spike exchanged unhappy looks.

“Uh, Vega? This Stone? It’s not a purple rock by any chance, is it?”

“I’ve never seen it myself, but yeah, that’s what the book says. Why? Do you know where it is?”

They knew exactly where it was. In the hands of Wolfram and Hart.

[Chapter Five](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/69750.html).

.


	5. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 5/11**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 5/11   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banner and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

**Gorgeous new banner today by [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)!**

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
---  
  
****

CHAPTER FIVE

 

The easiest thing, of course, would have been to infect someone else. No, that wasn’t right. The easiest thing would have been to let Lindsey stay Blighted, let him and his brother rot together in the basement. Angel probably would have gone for that plan. But Spike wouldn’t and, honestly, Xander’s conscience was digging at him, too.

So then the three of them argued about whether there was someone else they could pass the Blight onto. Vega had warned Xander that it would infect only humans. Or demons in dead human bodies, but even then it wasn’t quite as effective. That was why Spike hadn’t ended up in as bad a shape as the McDonalds. None of them could think of a human who was any more deserving of the Blight than Lindsey, and they didn’t much care for the idea of bringing in a vampire and trying to contain it, too.

“So why don’t we just send Lindsey back to Wolfram and Hart and let them deal with him?” Xander asked.

Angel shook his head. “Either they’ll let him stay like this—and you two have a problem with that—or they’ll cure him. And then he’ll be free to come after us again, and probably even more pissed off than before.”

Xander swallowed his bite of pad thai. “We could keep Lamont here as a hostage. We’d tell Lindsey that if he hurt any of us, Lamont would suffer.”

“Nah, pet. Cowboy would just try to rescue him. He’d be even more trouble that way.” Spike stole a noodle from Xander’s plate and slurped it down noisily, earning him an eye roll from Angel.

“Then what do we do?”

“I’ll go fetch the magic pebble.”

Xander and Angel made emphatically negative noises. “You will _not_!” Xander said, clutching at Spike’s arm as if that could keep him in LA.

“You’re going to do what, Spike? Just waltz in and ask nicely? I shouldn’t have to remind you what Wolfram and Hart are capable of, not after—“

“You don’t have to remind me of anything, Peaches,” Spike snarled. “I know what wankers they are. I’ll…I’ll think of something.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll come up with some sort of half-witted plan that you’re too impatient to carry out, and then they’ll get you.”

Xander had to bite his lip, because Angel was actually right. Not that he was going to tick off his beloved by saying so, but still. Spike was probably upset that Xander didn’t back him up, though, because he growled slightly and snatched his arm away, then crossed his arms sullenly on his chest.

“Look, Spike. If you go, I go too.”

Spike shook his head forcefully. “No. I’m not letting them have you, pet.”

Xander suddenly had a mental picture of Spike sneaking off to Dallas without him. “I mean it, Spike. You try to leave and I will track you down. I can do that now, you know. The whole smelling and tracking thing. And it’s not as gross as I used to think.”

Spike made an exasperated sound, and then the three of them sat silently for several minutes, each of them mulling over their dilemma. Finally, it was Angel who said, “We need Lindsey.”

“Need Lindsey? He’s the pain in the arse that started all of this!”

“Yeah, but he’s got the best chance of getting us inside Wolfram and Hart.”

“Yeah? And how do you propose to have that happen, Liam?”

Angel shut his eyes. “I’m gonna let him bite me.”

 

It was, Xander thought, a phenomenally stupid and dangerous plan. But since none of them could think of anything better, they were stuck with it. Vega had told Xander that the Blight eventually became permanent, so time was of the essence.

The crew in Britain was not at all happy with the plan, either. There was much transcontinental shouting and yelling. Xander was just relieved when he wasn’t the shoutee, and he actually enjoyed seeing the look on Angel’s face when Buffy told him exactly what she thought of his grand scheme.

But in the end, nobody at the other end could come up with anything better. And that’s why, three days later, Xander was at LAX again, this time to pick up a jetlagged and cranky Slayer named Kyna. Kyna was tall and blonde, with a sharp nose and sharper green eyes. She was not happy to have spent eleven hours stuffed in the middle of the middle row, with a pair of obnoxious American tourists on one side and a harried woman with a toddler on the other. She was not happy to be in LA. And most of all, she was not happy with the task assigned to her. She didn’t hesitate to tell this to Xander in an Irish accent so thick he only understood about half of what she said anyway. He meekly carried her bags to the van—she didn’t like the van, either—and tuned out her death glares as he threaded his way through traffic.

Xander was fairly certain Buffy had chosen this girl on purpose.

She sniffed at the Hyperion and, standing in the lobby, bristled at Spike. Wisely, Spike backed away, probably concluding, as had Xander, that Wolfram and Hart suddenly sounded like a much friendlier place to be.

Xander showed her to her room on the third floor, right across from Angel’s. She cast a skeptical eye around the room and then put her hands on her hips. “Let’s get this done with,” she ordered.

So Xander led her back down, and Spike trailed behind them to the basement. Angel was down there already, staring at Lindsey, his thoughts opaque. Lindsey was slumped crookedly against the wall, his ruined face downcast, while Lamont glared at all of them.

Angel looked over at them and stiffened when he saw Kyna. Being close to Slayers was difficult even for vamps with souls. But he was clearly trying to be polite, because he said, “Hi. I’m—“

“Angel. I know. The vampire with a soul.” Her voice was cold, but she said the word “vampire” as if it was a curse.

“Uh, yeah. One of them, anyway.” He glanced quickly at Spike, who put his hands up and shook his head. Obviously, Spike had decided that this Slayer was all Angel’s. “Did Buff—Did they explain what was going on?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I’m to mind you while your…” she waved dismissively at Xander and Spike “…your friends go off on some wild goose chase.” Xander had the idea she’d rather scrub sewers.

“Well, yeah,” Angel answered. He didn’t look very pleased with the idea, either.

She and Angel stared at each other, and they might have stood there all night, but finally Spike stomped forward. “Look, Slayer. You’re to make sure the pouf stays fed and safe, yeah? And play waitress for that one, too.” He pointed at Lamont. “None of us may be thrilled with the scheme, but we’ll be back as soon as we can, and you’re strong enough for this, yeah?”

She squinted at him and then nodded. “Yes. I promised I would do it.”

They all relaxed a little. “Ta, then.”

“What about…_that_?” she asked, pointing at Lindsey.

“That one’s coming with us.”

Lamont jumped to his feet at this, and Lindsey crawled awkwardly to the front of the cage. He wrapped his twisted hands around the bars and looked up at them imploringly. Angel stepped in close, almost close enough to touch.

“Listen up, boys. In a minute, I’m gonna stick my hand out, and you’re gonna bite me, Lindsey.” Xander didn’t think Lindsey’s eyes could get any bigger, but they did. His enormous mouth hung open in shock. “As soon as you’re together again, you’re gonna take Spike and Xander to your old lawyer pals, and you’re gonna help them get hold of the Stone of Karthos. And then all three of you are gonna come back here, all safe and sound, or else your baby brother is gonna be looking fondly back on the days when he was just hexed and jammed in a little cage. Right?”

Lindsey blinked up at him. Lamont started to say something but Angel shut him up with a flash of yellow eyes. Lindsey looked over at Kyna, who was scowling, and then at Spike and Xander, who were standing shoulder-to-shoulder. And then he nodded.

 

Kyna left the basement when Angel started to scream and spasm. Xander couldn’t blame her; he was pretty tempted to flee himself. But he didn’t. Instead he stayed, and he and Spike did the best they could to keep Angel from injuring himself while he thrashed against the floor. When Angel was finally still, unconscious on the cold cement, Xander glanced over at the cell. Lindsey was still down for the count, too, but he’d at least returned to his regular pretty-boy looks. Lamont was carrying handfuls of water over to his brother, trying to clean him off. He’d pissed himself during the transformation. Xander was glad Angel hadn’t been able to empty his bladder, too.

Spike and Xander stood wearily and then Spike heaved Angel over his shoulder. He muttered darkly about broody poufs and their fat arses, but still he carried Angel all the way up to his suite and set him down carefully on his bed. It occurred then to Xander that if Angel’s limbs ended up as twisted as Spike’s had been, the fancy clothes he was currently wearing were not going to work. So he ran upstairs and grabbed a pair of his own sweats, then ran back down.

It was a very strange thing, to be helping strip Angel. But he did, and he ignored the evil look Spike gave him when Xander maybe allowed his gaze to linger a bit too long over the unconscious vampire’s big, muscular body. “Oi, wolfboy! Remember who you belong to!”

Xander walked around the bed and smacked Spike’s perfect ass. “Yeah, I’m all yours, bleachie. Just…curious.”

Spike blew out a puff of air and then the two of them wrestled the sweats onto Angel’s legs and up to his waist. Then went to the sitting area to wait. Spike turned on the television, but neither of them really watched it.

A few hours later, Angel’s moans got their attention. They hurried to his bedside. He looked as horrible as Xander had expected, skewed and discolored, his tortured eyes wide with shock and pain. But Spike, who of course hadn’t seen his own transformed self, gasped and swore.

“Angel?” Xander said.

Angel looked at him plaintively. “Hurts,” he said. And then Xander and Spike both found themselves sitting beside him, smoothing his now-stringy hair from his face, patting his arms reassuringly.

“We’ll get you sorted quickly,” Spike promised.

There was a sharp knock at the door, and Xander went to answer it. It was Kyna, of course, now looking slightly more rested but no less grouchy. She wasn’t especially pretty. Her frame was large and bony and her jaw too square. Her hair, which really was gorgeous, was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, and her clothes reminded Xander of his outfits when he was younger: shapeless, too-large, and garishly colored. He wondered what she was hiding. She was probably in her mid-twenties but her face was hard, like someone who’d had a difficult life, and who expected the worst out of everything and everyone. But there was also a certain set to her eyes, a mixture of determination and masked vulnerability, that he liked very much. It reminded him of Anya.

“Well?” she demanded.

“He’s, uh, awake. C’mon in.”

She followed him inside, not even looking curiously around Angel’s suite, until they were at the stricken vampire’s bedside. When she saw what he’d become, she let out a soft “Oh!” of surprise, and Xander thought he saw a tiny crack in her shell. Angel looked at her miserably and then turned his face away.

“He’ll be in loads of pain,” Spike said. “And his head is all…muddled. Slow.” Xander noted without any jealousy at all that Spike was tenderly, probably unconsciously, stroking his grandsire’s hand as he spoke. Despite all the fighting, there really was a strong bond between them, though neither would probably admit it.

“All right,” Kyna said, her voice firm.

“You’ll need to be a bit patient with the pillock, yeah? Perhaps…a hot soak might help his joints. And make sure he drinks plenty. There’s blood in his fridge, and we’ve arranged to have more brought every couple nights.”

Kyna nodded, while Xander felt absurdly like a parent leaving his kid with the babysitter.

“There’s a grocers about a mile and half up the street, and the keys to the Viper are over there.” Spike pointed at Angel’s dresser.

“I’ve never driven on the right,” Kyna said, a trace of doubt in her voice.

“Um, then maybe the Viper’s not such a great idea,” said Xander. “That’s okay. I know a store that’ll deliver. I’ll write down the number for you. And there’s a bunch of cash—“

“I’ve been provided with enough money already,” she said. Spike and Xander gave each other a small grin. Hooray for the Council.

“You have my cell number and Spike’s, and—“

“I shall be fine. I’m quite capable, you know.”

“I’m sure you are, love. Only things tend to go wonky ‘round here, yeah? Watch yourself.” Spike patted Angel’s hand once more and then stood. Xander scribbled down the phone number for Pavilions, plus those of a couple of his favorite pizza and Chinese places.

Angel sat up in bed and gave them both an intense stare. “Fast,” he said, his voice guttural and thick. “Careful.”

Spike set his jaw and nodded, then left the room without looking back. “We’ll hurry,” said Xander and followed his vampire.

 

Down in the basement, Lindsey was waiting for them, standing anxiously by the cell door. Spike narrowed his eyes at the man. “You know what happens if you fuck up,” he said, and cut his glance meaningfully toward Lamont. Lindsey nodded.

Spike unlocked the cell and opened the door. Lindsey came out slowly, cautiously. It was the first time he’d been out of the cell in over a year. Spike relocked the door behind him and then Lamont rushed over to clutch tearfully at the bars. “Linds….”

Lindsey patted his brother’s cheek. Then, as Lamont continued to sob, he turned and followed Spike up the stairs. Xander walked behind them, trying hard not to appreciate the guy’s rather shapely butt.

Up in Spike’s and Xander’s suite, Lindsey took a hot shower. After, Xander handed him a pair of scissors and a razor, and Lindsey hacked away at most of his beard before shaving his face clean. Then Spike pushed him down onto the closed toilet and cut his hair. He was good at it—150 years of grooming himself without a mirror had honed his skills, it seemed. Finally, Xander handed Lindsey some clothes: some boxers and a pair of jeans, a brown t-shirt, and some boots. The clothes were new, but the boots were the lawyer’s own. Angel had stashed them away for reasons known only to him. Everything fit, but Lindsey looked a little uncomfortable, dressed. Xander supposed that’s what happened after months of nudity.

When the man was looking presentable again, Spike ordered him to sit in the Punishment Seat. He did, eyeing them both warily.

“Gonna give you back your voice, cowboy. But your demon hex won’t work on my boy here, and I promise you, you don’t want to tangle with him. So you’ll keep a civil tongue, yeah?”

Lindsey nodded vigorously.

It was actually Xander who said the spell. It was a short one, nice and easy, and Willow had made him practice several times. Still, the magic made him uneasy. Spike too, for very good reason. The vampire stood far away as Xander chanted.

But then it was done. “Well? Can you talk now?” Xander asked.

Lindsey rubbed at his throat. “Y-Yeah,” he said. He sounded awful, but he smiled broadly anyway, clearly pleased to be able to speak again.

Spike strode forward and grabbed his duster off a chair. “Night’s not getting any younger,” he announced.

 

Xander had a string of unfortunate road trips in his past. There were times when he was a kid and his parents took him to visit his grandparents in Denver. Sometimes their car, which was always a piece of shit, would break down, or sometimes his parents would get in a huge screaming fight before they made it over the California border. Then there was the summer after high school, when he’d meant to have a great adventure, and instead ended up bussing tables and avoiding grabby hands at the Fabulous Ladies’ Nightclub in Oxnard. And, of course, there was last year’s cross-country excursion, complete with bespelled vampires and werewolf attacks.

Good times.

And now he had the joy of traveling 1400 miles across the desert in August with a periodically homicidal former lawyer and a temperamental vampire boyfriend, all so they could mess with an enormously powerful, evil law firm.

This seemed destined to be his best road trip yet.

Spike was taking first shift as driver, while Xander sat in the passenger seat, eating a burger and fries. Lindsey was eating, too, clearly appreciating the first decent food he’d had in a while. He was kneeling in the open entry to the van’s cargo area, craning his neck to look out the windshield. It had been a long time since he’d seen anything but Angel’s basement, too.

“So, tell me how you guys plan to get your hands on that Stone,” he said, licking at his fingers.

Spike glared at the highway, so Xander supposed he got to be explanation guy. “We’re gonna go to Dallas. Do you know who’s in charge there?”

“Yeah. Well, I used to, anyway. Guy named Novak. He’s a pretty big prick. Kinda reminded me of my old boss, actually.”

“Great. You’re gonna give him a call when we get there. Tell him Spike and Angel have been holding you all this time, but you escaped, and you’ve got Spike ready to hand over to him. Maybe even tell him you can get him Angel, right? And then you say your magic demon word to Spike and bring him to Novak’s office with you. And when Novak’s real close, you unhex Spike and Spike snatches Novak and demands the rock. When you get it, you guys leave, taking Novak with you. We can dump him somewhere after we’re away.”

“And you?”

“I’m driving the getaway van.” And playing backup if things went spectacularly wrong, as they probably would. But he didn’t say that part aloud.

“Okay, I got it.” Lindsey crumpled his hamburger wrapper and threw it in the corner. “What happens when we get back to LA?”

“We fix the pouf, and you return to your cozy little hole in the cellar. But we let little brother go.” Spike’s eyes gleamed in the light from the dashboard.

“Fuck. I don’t wanna be locked up anymore. Can’t you let me go if I promise to be good?”

Spike snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause your promises are worth so much.”

“The fucker had me _shot_, man! I was on your side and the fucker had me shot.”

Spike turned his head and looked at Lindsey, long enough that Xander started to worry about the van staying on the road. “If he’d let you live to join us in that alley, would you have fought on our side? Or would you have turned on us?”

Lindsey opened his mouth, started to say something, and then stopped. His shoulders slumped and he dropped his head. “I dunno, man. I dunno.”

Spike grimaced at the windshield. “Finally an honest answer from a lawyer.”

 

After several hours, Spike pulled over at a rest stop and Xander took a turn behind the wheel. Spike sat beside him, smoking and humming to himself, but Xander knew he was nervous. Hell, so was he. Sometimes one of them would reach over and put his hand on the other’s knee, and that was nice.

“So, like, have you always been gay, Spike?”

Spike shot Lindsey a filthy look. “What’s it matter to you, twat?”

“Just wonderin’. I always kinda thought you and Angel….”

“Pffft. Jealous, are we?”

Lindsey sputtered. “Of what?”

“The big ponce. You’ve wanted him for ages.”

“I have not! For one, I don’t like guys, and for another, I can’t stand the asshole.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Xander saw Spike give an evil grin. “Can’t lie to me, cowboy. I smell it on you. ‘Sides, why else were you so stuck on him? Surely he’s not the only git who done you wrong.”

Xander had no idea whether Spike really could smell Lindsey’s attraction to Angel, but pulling the lawyer’s chain was amusing. “Yeah, I smelled it, too.” He tapped his nose. “The wolf nose knows.”

Lindsey sputtered some more and Spike snickered. But then Lindsey crawled all the way into the cargo area and shut the door behind him, so there went that fun. Spike went back to humming and smoking.

The highway was really, really boring.

Xander stopped once to refill the tank and take a leak, then climbed behind the wheel for more hours of nothingness. When the sun rose, Spike went into the back and kicked Lindsey out, and then Xander had to contend with the lawyer’s presence next to him. Sometimes Lindsey asked a question, and Xander answered in as few words as possible. He wasn’t this guy’s buddy, after all.

Xander’s lids were growing increasingly heavy, and then Lindsey poked at him. “C’mon man, You’re gonna fall asleep. I’ll take a turn.”

Xander’s tired brain mulled this over for a moment. They did need to travel quickly, and if he couldn’t even trust Lindsey to drive for a while, how could he ever trust him to take Spike into the belly of the beast, all zapped by the spell? “Okay,” he finally said. He took the next exit and pulled off to the shoulder. He unbuckled and began to climb in the back as Lindsey steered the van back on the road.

Xander shut the partition behind him. Spike was fast asleep in the dark, curled up comfortably in the nest of blankets they’d put back there. “Who’s driving?” he asked sleepily as Xander draped himself around him.

“Lindsey.”

“’Kay.” Spike pressed himself against Xander in a familiar and comfortable way, and sucked lightly at his spot on Xander’s neck. For a moment, Xander considered a quick little grope session. They could even be noisy about it, just to tick Lindsey off. But he was exhausted, and his mind was still weighing the pros and cons when he fell asleep.

[Chapter Six](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/69947.html).

.


	6. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 6/11**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 6/11   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
---  
  
****

CHAPTER SIX

 

Even though they arrived in Dallas in the middle of the night, it was hot out and sticky, and the air felt heavy and sort of tingly. Little flickers of sensation tickled at Xander’s nerves and there was an odd scent in the air. He didn’t like it. It made him feel…jangly. And speaking of odd scents, twenty-four hours or so cooped up in a van hadn’t done much for Lindsey’s personal odor, or Xander’s own, for that matter. He badly wanted showers all around. Spike was less stinky—one of the side benefits of being undead, apparently.

Spike was driving when they came to the city limits, but he’d never been to Dallas before, nor had Xander, so it was Lindsey who directed them through the sparse traffic and to a hotel he said was about a mile from Wolfram and Hart’s offices. Spike parked the van and they grabbed their bags, and then the three of them trudged into the lobby.

It was a nice place, kind of fancy but not too corporate looking. A skinny young guy smiled at them from the registration desk, way too perky for this hour of the morning. Maybe he had a vamp lover, too. Xander noted happily that the hotel was run by the same company that owned the Monaco back in Chicago. He’d liked that place, even after being stuck there for weeks.

“Can I help you?” the perky guy asked.

Spike pushed his way slightly forward. “Yeah. We need a room, mate.”

The clerk looked at the three of them. “Just one?”

“Yeah. But with two beds, if you’ve got one.”

The guy didn’t bat an eyelash. “For how many nights?”

“Erm, three.” They’d discussed this in the van. Ideally they’d be done here sooner than that, but it might take a day or so for things to get in place.

“Let me see what we have. Hmm….” He clicked and clacked at his computer. “I have a couple rooms available with two double beds. Or…” more typing, “I have a Luxury Suite available. It has a king bed and a queen sofa sleeper.”

Spike and Xander glanced at each other. “We’ll take it,” Xander said. He hardly even winced when they were told it would run $450 a night with tax. Angel could afford it, or the Council. Whichever.

They went up to their room, and it was a nice one. Roomy. Xander made sure the drapes completely covered the window, but they were facing north anyway, so Spike was probably reasonably safe. Meanwhile, Spike rooted through the minibar while Lindsey collapsed onto the couch with a satisfied _whoosh_. Xander was just about to invite Spike to join him in the shower when a tremendous crash came from outside. Thunder. Maybe the storm would cool things down a little.

“You hungry, Spike?” he asked.

“Yeah. Might as well finish off the blood before it goes off.” They’d brought a small cooler with them, containing a couple days’ worth of pig blood for Spike. Mindful of their experiences last time, they’d also made sure to get the address of a local demon bar, someplace that could probably set them up with some human stuff if the need arose. Plus, Angel had pointed out when they were making plans, Spike could live off of Xander and Lindsey for a few days without taking enough to harm them. Xander had growled at the mental image of his vampire feeding off the lawyer.

Xander fetched the last foam container for Spike and Spike gulped it down, then had a chaser from a tiny whiskey bottle. “Have to wash the taste of that shite out of my mouth,” he muttered.

“Shower?” Xander asked.

“Nah, you go ahead, pet.”

Xander shrugged, slightly disappointed. “Okay.”

“You don’t have to babysit me, you know. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Spike ignored Lindsey. “Go ahead, Xan.”

It wasn’t that big of a tub anyway. Not that he would have necessarily minded the tight quarters, but he did truly want to get clean. So he scrubbed down quickly and then emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his hips. Spike was reclining on the bed, shoes and duster off, watching television. Lindsey was still on the couch. He’d kicked off his shoes, too, and his arms were crossed behind his head.

“Next,” Xander said.

“Go ahead, cowboy,” Spike said. “You reek.”

Lindsey sat up with a shrug. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “I’ve missed hot showers.”

Xander dropped the towel and climbed under the sheets beside Spike. “I rang home,” Spike said. “Talked to the Slayer. Captain Broody is all right.”

“Kyna looked pretty capable.”

Spike chuckled. “Yeah. I’d almost fancy the evil lawyers’ company more.”

They leaned against each other and watched _CSI_ until Lindsey reappeared, damp and shirtless, with his slightly too-large jeans falling down over one hip. “Nice shower,” he remarked. Neither of them answered.

Spike kissed Xander’s cheek and then stood and stretched and sauntered off to the bathroom. Xander watched him, slightly mesmerized by the denim stretched tightly over his lover’s ass.

“Weren’t you one of those Sunnydale people?”

Xander glanced at Lindsey, who’d started to pull apart the sofa bed but had stopped to look at him.

“Once upon a time, yeah.”

“So, how’d you end up with him?” Lindsey gestured with his thumb toward the closed bathroom door.

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Lucky? From what I gather, if it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t have been bit by that werewolf. You wouldn’t be riskin’ your neck with my old firm. Seems like he’s been pretty unlucky, dude.”

Xander didn’t raise his voice. “I was getting munched on by monsters well before Spike came on the scene. You know,” he added conversationally, “I heard about your little visit to hell. So by the way, let me promise you if you ever do anything to hurt him, I’ll personally make you wish you were back there instead.”

Lindsey looked uncertain about whether to take the threat seriously. “He’s just a vamp, man.”

“Yeah, but he’s _my _vamp. You know, my best friend, Willow—she’s a witch—when someone killed her honey, she skinned him alive. I bet she’d show me how to do the same.” Actually, he’d bet she’d do no such thing, but Lindsey didn’t know that, and now the man swallowed nervously and looked down at the partially assembled bed.

“I ain’t gonna hurt Spike,” he mumbled.

“Or Angel. ‘Cause I can barely stand him most of the time but he’s sort of my in-law, you know.”

“Or Angel.” Lindsey’s shoulders slumped and he looked exhausted. “I’m…I’m tired of this all. You know what I wanna do? Buy myself a little ranch. Go fishin’. Play my guitar. That’s all I wanna do.”

Xander thought he was telling the truth, but he wasn’t about to offer Lindsey false promises. They both knew that if they survived their time in Dallas, Angel would never just let Lindsey go.

Lindsey turned away from him and finished setting up his bed. He had slipped off his jeans, revealing the oxford blue boxers Xander had bought him, and was about to get into bed, when Spike emerged. The vampire was nude and magnificent, his hair tousled and his lips set in a delicious smirk.

“For Christ’s sake, put some clothes on!” Lindsey complained.

“Bothers you, does it? Oh, I forgot. You don’t fancy blokes.”

Lindsey made a disgusted noise and lay down, pointedly turning his back to Spike. Spike prowled across the room, as predatory and feline as ever, his bright eyes now locked on Xander. Xander smiled. He liked to be stalked like this, and he wasn’t about to let Lindsey’s presence ruin his time with Spike. Not when it could very well be their last time.

Xander clicked off the light, knowing Spike would have no trouble finding him in the dark. And Spike didn’t, slipping under the covers and then pressing himself against Xander. He was warm from the shower and his hair tickled Xander’s face, soft and ungelled. “Have a nice chat with Linds?” he asked quietly.

“Mmm.” Xander always had trouble thinking straight when Spike was near him like this, his cool breaths wafting across Xander’s neck, making him shiver with need. “I’d rather chat with you.”

“Could do something more than chat,” Spike said, and he reached down to caress Xander’s half-hard cock.

“Mmm,” Xander repeated, only with more enthusiasm this time, as his left palm found its favorite spot on the firm swell of Spike’s ass. Then he didn’t say anything at all, because Spike was kissing him.

Spike was a very good kisser. Decades of practice, he said, and lots of experience doing things with his mouth. Sometimes they’d kiss while he was in gameface, and he’d accidentally-on purpose press a fang’s edge against Xander’s mouth, then suck at the tiny wound he’d made. But tonight he kept his human face, which was just as good. His full lips were soft like ripe fruit, and his questing tongue tasted of whiskey and blood and smoke and barbecue spices from the chips they’d been munching on in the van.

As the kiss became more insistent and Spike’s pelvis flexed against him, dragging the vampire’s hard cock against Xander’s hip, Xander couldn’t help but let a moan escape.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Lindsey, and they broke off their kiss to laugh into one another’s necks. Gods, how Xander loved Spike’s laugh, low and sexy. It never failed to send a prickle straight to Xander’s cock, even when that cock wasn’t being stroked with nimble, adept fingers.

Outside, more thunder rumbled, and it vibrated deep inside Xander. Maybe inside Spike, too, because he moaned and trembled against Xander. “Xan?” he whispered. “Not gonna last tonight anyhow. Can I—“

“Bite me, Spike.”

Spike shuddered again and his hand squeezed Xander just on the good side of painful. He licked at the skin above Xander’s carotid, only the tip of his sharp tongue, and it was Xander’s turn to convulse slightly. His body had been trained very well over the past year. So when he heard the soft crunch of bones reshaping themselves, he arched up into Spike’s grip and gasped. Before he felt the sharp ecstasy of Spike’s teeth, though, he thrust his hand under his lover and dampened his index finger on the precome that had collected on the head of Spike’s cock. He reached around again then and carefully inserted that finger into the cleft of Spike’s cheeks and, just barely, into his twitching hole.

Spike hissed and stilled for a moment. But then he arched his back a little so that Xander’s finger slid farther inside him. He was tight and cool, and Xander concentrated on that feeling briefly, but then he was distracted by the muscular body undulating atop him and the strong hand quickly rubbing him and then—and then came the bite and that was all. His body practically levitated as sweet lightning flashed through him, ruining him, making him fall apart.

He cried out.

When he could feel himself again, he realized that Spike had stilled, and that his groin was wet from his own come and Spike’s, and that Spike was human-faced again and nipping lightly at his jawline.

“Lovely, pet,” Spike murmured, and his voice was so hoarse and panting that Xander felt his sated cock twitch with interest.

Spike laughed again. “Get some sleep, Xan.”

“Yeah. You, too.”

“Both of you sleep, _please_!” Lindsey called, and Spike threw a pillow at him.

Spike remained half wrapped around him with his lips just barely touching Xander’s neck and his hand resting against Xander’s flank. Xander refused to think about what was likely to happen in the next couple days. Instead, he let Spike’s slowing breaths guide his own, and soon they were all fast asleep.

 

The first thing he saw when he awoke was an empty sofa bed. He had a moment of panic, thinking Lindsey had fled. But then he heard the toilet flush and the sink briefly run, and Lindsey came out of the bathroom, still in his boxers.

“You two are noisy,” he announced when he saw they were awake.

“Sorry we didn’t ask you to join us?” Spike curled his tongue behind his teeth. “’Cause let me tell you, my boy here feels so good when he’s moving inside me, filling me so nicely. Or when I’m in him, and he’s so hot and tight. It’s—“

“Cut it out! Are you trying to make some kind of point?”

Spike smiled wickedly and stood, his pretty cock all morning-rampant. “Yeah. My Xan’s a bloody treat and you’ll never taste him.” And he marched off to the bathroom.

Xander ordered room service for himself and Lindsey, and by the time it arrived everyone was dressed and they were ready to set their stupid plan in motion. Even though he was nervous, he was still hungry—he was always hungry, thanks to his wolfish metabolism—and he sat at the room’s small table and shoved a decent steak and thick fries into his mouth. Lindsey had a steak, too, his first since they’d captured him, and as he ate it he moaned almost as rapturously as Spike and Xander had during the night.

But then Xander glanced at Spike, who was sipping at another tiny liquor bottle, his gaze turned deeply inward, and all Xander could think was “last meal.” Suddenly his sirloin tasted like cardboard and he pushed his plate away. “Can we get this over with?” he asked, wiping his mouth.

“Yeah.” Spike stood and walked to where his duster was draped across a chair. He fished in a pocket and came out with a cell phone, which he tossed to Lindsey. Lindsey caught it neatly. “You’re up,” Spike said.

Lindsey swallowed the last of his meal and dialed the phone. His first call wasn’t to Dallas, but rather to his last boss in New York. He made a pained face and took deep breaths as he waited for an answer.

“Hey, Chuck. Guess who?”

Unlike Spike, Xander couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, but still, he could get a pretty good idea from this end how the conversation was going.

“Yep….Yeah, it’s really me, man….No, it’s…it’s kinda a long story, actually….That bastard Angel had me. But I got loose….That’s why I called. I’m in Dallas now, and I sorta got a present for the firm. I need to talk to Novak….No, I can’t get to New York now. Gimme Novak’s number, and you can meet us here….’Kay, hang on.” Lindsey stood and grabbed a notepad and pen from the desk. “Hit me.” He wrote as he listened. “Got it. I’m gonna call him now, and—….Okay. See ya.”

He disconnected and frowned at them slightly. “He’s insisting on coming out here himself. He’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

Spike tossed his empty bottle into the trash. “Not pleased about a reunion?”

“No. He…. I didn’t exactly have permission to take off after Angel last year. They’d kinda given up on him, for now, anyway. I was supposed to be handling this thing in New Jersey, and…and the old man’s not real happy with me.”

Xander couldn’t help but grimace. He’d heard the stories—when Wolfram and Hart was unsatisfied, its employees could expect more than a bad performance review.

Spike shrugged. “You play this well and we’ll be long gone when he arrives, yeah?”

Lindsey nodded. “Yeah,” he muttered, and he peered at the notepad and punched numbers into the phone.

“Hi, Mr. Novak. Um, this is—….Sloane gave me your number, sir. My name is Lindsey McDonald, and—….Yeah. That Lindsey McDonald.” The man hunched uncomfortably, apparently unhappy that others in the firm knew who he was. “I was in LA, sir. I got…captured…..No, he’s not here. He… got your surprise. I escaped.”

They’d discussed their strategy at great length, and finally decided to play it as if Lamont had directly infected Angel, just as Wolfram and Hart had planned. Spike had even taken a picture of Angel in his current state, using the camera in Lindsey’s phone, so that if necessary Lindsey would have proof of the transformation. Angel being Blighted would also give Lindsey a reasonable explanation for how he’d managed to get free.

“Well, that’s why I’m calling sir. I wanted to tell you I was coming. I’m just down the road from you right now. And I’m bringing something for you....Spike. He’s kinda Angel’s—….Yeah, exactly. But I got him now….Well, I figured you might have use for him in his own right, you know? He’s a vamp with a soul, too.”

There was a long pause, as Lindsey and Spike listened intensely. “Yes, sir. An hour.”

He slid the phone shut and sighed. “He’s waitin’ for us.”

 

They’d decided it would be best if Spike looked a little disheveled. So the three of them trouped out to the van using a blanket they’d brought to protect Spike from the sun, Once they were inside, Xander helped Spike rough up his clothing a bit, tearing the cloth here and there. He ruffled Spike’s hair, too, secretly delighting in the tumbled curls that Spike hated so much.

“Hit me, pet.”

“No!”

“I need to look a bit banged up. Just…punch my eye, maybe.”

“Spike, I can’t hit you!”

From the driver’s seat, Lindsey said, “I’ll do it.”

“Sod off! C’mon Xan. Not like you haven’t done it before.”

“Yeah, but I was just a kid, and you were trying to kidnap Willow.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Or I’d shagged your demon bint.”

Xander frowned at him and made a fist. “Fine,” he said. “But I’m not happy about it.”

“You can make it up to me later, love.” Spike looked up at Xander through his eyelashes, the way he knew made Xander helpless. With a loud sigh, Xander pulled back his arm and then socked Spike pretty hard in the face. Spike said _oof_ and his head snapped back. “Nice one. Another one now, about the mouth, I think.”

Xander bit as his lip. Then he uncurled his hand and slapped hard at Spike’s soft lips with his open palm, in a manner he knew from unfortunate personal experience was guaranteed to puff a face right up. It stung him, too, which was only fair.

Spike spat a mouthful of blood out the open door. “Brilliant, love. How do I look?”

“Like you need me to kiss you better.”

Spike grabbed at Xander’s shoulders and pulled him close “Give us a kiss, then, and let’s get this farce moving, yeah?”

Neither of them said what they were thinking, that this could be the last time they did this, but they made it a memorable one anyway. Spike tasted of his own blood, but that only added to the intensity of a kiss so passionate that Xander’s toenails tingled, and an embrace so fierce he heard their ribs crack. They were breathless when they pulled apart and Xander’s cheeks were flushed. “Spike—“ he began.

“Shh.” Spike rested a long finger across Xander’s lips. Then he took his hands away and called to Lindsey, “Do it.”

Lindsey said some words, just a few harsh syllables like rocks grating together. Spike collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and only Xander’s enhanced speed allowed him to catch the vampire before he fell to the floor. Swallowing thickly, pretending to ignore the very cadaver-like way his lover was looking now, Xander eased him down, gently arranging him on his belly. He chained him, then, in the bonds they’d brought with them. They looked strong enough but Spike could break them if he had to. There were manacles for his wrists and a hobble on his ankles. Worst to look at, though, was the collar around his neck, to which Xander buckled a short leash. This wasn’t the kind of bondage he liked, not at all.

“He’ll only be out for a half hour or so,” Lindsey said. “We gotta go, man.”

Xander stroked Spike’s back gently, one more time, feeling the delicate vertebrae beneath him, and then curled up in the corner of the cargo area, ready to pull blankets over himself when they got there.

“All right. Let’s go.”

 

There were a limited number of things one could do, while sitting in a van and waiting for one’s beloved to escape evil demonic lawyers with a magic rock. Pretty soon Xander had done them all, and then all he had left was fidgeting impatiently, pushing the light button on his Indiglo every thirty seconds or so.

Time dragged on, worse than back in his eighth grade geography class, where Mr. Lee could spend an entire class period speaking about the major exports of Paraguay without ever once changing the tone or inflection of his voice. And for once, Xander’s over-full head was mercilessly empty, with just a single thought bouncing around relentlessly: “What the fuck is happening to Spike?”

And as the minutes crawled by, one after another, Xander’s heartbeat grew gradually faster, his breathing more harsh, his stomach more tightly clenched, until he was on teetering on the edge of full-blown panic.

Once again he pressed the little button that made his watch face glow blue. It was 5:37. Spike and Lindsey had been in there almost two hours, and that was much, much too long.

Xander considered his options. He could go marching into the building and demand that they give him back his vampire. Yeah, that would work out just dandy. He thought about the men in suits—the very _big_ men in suits—who’d come to the van when they’d arrived. Xander had peeked from under his camouflaging blankets and watched as one of them slung Spike over his shoulder like a sack of laundry, not even grunting with the effort, as the other two glared at Lindsey and kept their right hands inside their jackets. Their bullets wouldn’t kill him unless they were silver—not that he would put something like that past these people—but he’d be hard pressed to overcome these three, let alone the untold numbers of others inside.

But he didn’t really have a Plan B.

He looked at his watch again. 5:41. Fuck.

A moment or two later he heard voices and footsteps approaching. Not Spike’s. These voices were light and high—women’s voices—and the footsteps were the sharp clackity-clack of high heels. Xander scrunched down into his seat, hoping to make himself invisible, as a trio of women in dresses appeared to his left. They stood a few cars over, laughing and chatting, and then one of them got into the Accord next to him, while the others left for their own cars. Engines roared to life. As they pulled out of the garage, more people arrived, and then more, in ones and twos and threes, all heading home to whatever passed for normal family life for Wolfram and Hart employees. Soon the garage was nearly emptied of cars.

Then all was silent and still again.

An eternity later, and Xander was about to go in anyway, when another voice sounded out. Male, this time.

“Is that his van?”

Xander dropped to the floorboards and crawled into the back, quickly pulling the blankets over him. He metaphorically pricked up his ears, thought about shifting so he could prick them up for real. But it was impossible for a wolf to drive, and he could hear just fine like this anyhow.

“Yeah, that’s it.” The second voice was deeper, less cultured.

“Call and have it towed away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sloane from New York will be arriving tomorrow at eleven. Make sure there’s a car waiting for him at the airport.”

“Of course, sir. And McDonald?”

“He’s Sloane’s. I promised. But the vampire’s mine. Call Morris, tell him to show up with his tools by ten. This vamp’s going to tell us how to get to that fucker in LA. We may have to rally some forces, but this time we’re going to do it.”

“Very good, sir.” The minion sounded happy, smug even. “Have a good evening, Mr. Novak.”

“You make sure they’re closely guarded. I’m going to have myself a _very_ good evening.”

There was the purr of a powerful engine--obviously, the black BMW M6 parked a couple rows over—and the swish of tires on concrete.

Xander waited, his head reeling, until he was sure the coast was clear. Then he crept back into the driver’s seat and looked around. Nobody was visible. There must be cameras, though, and he had no way to tell whether anyone was monitoring them. Well, but he couldn’t just wait here, could he? He was no use to Spike like this, and even less so if he got caught in the morning when the tow truck arrived.

He swore, loudly and forcefully, and slipped his keys into the ignition. Then he drove away.

He drove around aimlessly for a while, not wanting to get lost in this unfamiliar city, but also wanting to make sure nobody was tailing him. It was possible that Lindsey had turned on them, that he’d told them everything, including which hotel they were staying at. It didn’t sound like it, though—it sounded like Lindsey was as screwed as they were. And nobody had descended on Xander as he hid in the garage, so he took that as a sign that Wolfram and Hart didn’t know he was there. It was the only advantage he had right now.

When he was certain he was clear, he returned to the hotel.

The room was quiet and empty. Xander had a moment of pure weakness, when he collapsed on the bed and buried his face in Spike’s pillows, drinking in the vampire’s scent. Then he straightened his shoulders, figuratively and literally, and got hold of himself.

He had to find a way to rescue Spike. Okay, he’d done that before, hadn’t he? So what if this time he was up against the same group of bastards who’d nearly taken Angel and Spike and their whole crew down. So what if he only had until ten tomorrow before Morris showed up with his tools to do something to Spike, something Xander didn’t want to even think about.

He could do this.

He had to.

 

[Chapter Seven](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/70619.html)

 

 

.


	7. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 7/12**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 7/12   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
---  
  
**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 

Xander was good at some things. Really good, even.

You could ask him to build almost anything—a picture frame, a chest of drawers, a whole fucking house—and he could. He wouldn’t be especially fast at it, but he’d do the job, and the end result would be sturdy, pleasing to the eye, elegant even. Something to be proud of.

You could ask him to comfort someone in distress, like a potential who’d suddenly found herself turned into a Slayer, or a witch who’d lost her love and become carried away with dark magic, or a vampire under an emotion-boosting spell. He could do that. He’d lead the baby Slayer to a place where she could fully realize her powers, he’d remind the witch of the power of friendship and save the world, he’d babysit the vampire until the curse was all gone and the vampire had fallen in love.

And now, you could ask him to track someone by scent alone, days after the person had passed, or to hear a mouse gnawing at a baseboard four floors away, or to see a bad guy slipping away on a street with all the lights busted out. He’d do those things, too, and run faster than any human and bring down nasty demons with his powerful jaws and long, sharp teeth.

You could even ask him to hop into bed, and to impress a vampire with a century and half of experience with his enthusiasm and aptitude for sex. He’d be more than happy to do that, thank you very much.

But strategizing, planning rescues against impossible odds—those were never going to be his forte. So, with no other choice before him, Xander did what he had to do.

Xander called England.

 

There was a considerable amount of dear Lording and what were you thinking mistering and I should’ve kicked their asses years agoing. He’d expected that, and he weathered it as patiently as he could. Eventually it all died out, though, and, as he’d hoped, it was replaced with an intense discussion about what to do.

He didn’t say much. He mostly listened in as the cell phones on the other side of the Atlantic twittered urgently. Eventually, there was a plan of sorts.

Buffy would stay there. Somebody had to supervise the Slayers, and there was the baby, of course, and Buffy’s boyfriend was out of town at some sort of conference. A whole army of Slayers might actually help against Wolfram and Hart, but there was no way to get them to Dallas within—fuck. Within fourteen hours.

Giles and Willow, and the other hand—they could manage.

Xander hung up and paced the room restlessly. Spike’s duster was still there, and Xander stopped and petted it sometimes, but that didn’t really make him feel any better. It occurred to him that he ought to eat, so he ordered a burger from room service, but when it arrived he couldn’t stomach more than a bite. He tried not to wonder what was happening to Spike right now. Was he in pain? Was he frightened? Did he know that Xander would try—no, would succeed, dammit!—to save him?

And suddenly there was an enormous _whoomph_ of air that made his eardrums ache and the scent of Earl Grey and sage, and a clatter as one of the chairs fell over.

Willow and Giles were standing in the room. Giles was holding his glasses in one hand and looking pretty green around the gills, but Willow looked flushed and triumphant. “Xander!” she exclaimed, and, almost before he could brace himself, she flung herself against him, all gauzy skirts and fuzzy sweater and pomegranate-smelling hair.

“Will!” he managed with the small amount of breath left in his lungs.

She peeled herself off him a few moments later. “Hi, Giles,” Xander wheezed.

“I think I shall take an airplane when we return,” Giles replied weakly.

Willow grinned. “Teleporting takes a little getting used to. But, hey, cheer up. No airplane food and no long lines for security, and no staticky announcements from the captain that you can’t quite understand so then you worry that you’ve missed something important.”

Giles dropped into one of the chairs that was still upright and put his glasses back on. He was wearing jeans and a pale blue shirt and a tan leather jacket, and he was going to roast if he stepped foot outside the air conditioned hotel. Willow, too, for that matter.

“How are you doing, Xan?” Willow asked.

He hadn’t seen either of them since he left for Chicago last year, and he realized they were both looking him over curiously, carefully. He didn’t understand why. He was the same old Xander as last year, just out of the closet and in love with a vampire and, occasionally, furry. Okay. Maybe the staring made sense.

“I was fine until this happened. Happy, even.”

“And you and Spike…?”

“I love him, Will.” He said it plainly, because when it came down to it, it really was that simple. He shrugged. “He loves me back.” Then he felt his face start to crumple and he had to turn away and bite his lip hard.

She patted his shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll get him back. We will.”

Gods, he wanted to believe her.

He cleared his throat and turned back around to face them. “Thanks for coming, guys. I really…I appreciate it.”

Giles mumbled something and then stood. He walked over to the coffee maker and rooted through the basket beside it, grumbling to himself about Americans and their appalling ideas of tea. It made Xander grin a little despite the grim situation.

“So. What do we have to do?” Xander asked.

“_You_ have to get some sleep, Xan. Giles and I can work on the preparations and we’ll be fine, ‘cause we’re still on English time and it’s morning for us.”

Xander shook his head. “There’s no way I’m gonna be able to sleep. I can’t even sit still. Not when Spike—Gods, Will, they could be doing anything to him right now.”

“I can do a spell, Xan. You’ll have a nice, dreamless nap.”

Xander started to protest, but then Giles chimed in. “She’s right. You won’t be any good to anyone if you’re exhausted in the morning.”

Xander opened his mouth again and then shut it. They were right. He wasn’t going to do anything now except get in the way. He walked over to the bed and flopped backward onto it. “Fine. But you better make sure I wake up in time.”

“We wouldn’t dream of allowing you to miss the festivities, Xander.”

Xander stared at the ceiling. “Go ahead, then. Hit me. But I don’t think it’s gonna—“

 

The sun was in his eyes and his first thought was panic. Sun! Spike was going to burn! But then he remembered where he was and what had happened, and the panic turned into near-despair. Sunlight was probably the least of Spike’s worries right now.

Xander groaned and sat up.

Giles was at the little table, cup in hand, reading a newspaper. A crumb-covered plate was in front of him and the room smelled of bergamot and marmalade.

“Willow?” Xander asked groggily.

Giles looked up at him. “She’ll be along shortly. She needed a few supplies, and she went to hire a car.”

“A car? What’s wrong with the van?”

“Nothing, except Wolfram and Hart saw Spike and Lindsey appear in it yesterday, and then you drove it away. I expect they’d be quite suspicious if we pulled up in the same vehicle.”

“Oh.” Of course. Xander shook his head to clear it of the last wisps of sleep. “So…shit. They know Spike has help, then. They’ll be expecting us.” His spirits, already low, sank even more.

“Yes, but I doubt they’re aware that Spike’s help consists of a powerful witch, a werewolf, and…and a decrepit Watcher.” Giles smiled a little at him, and Xander gave a small smile back.

“I bet you still have a few good moves in you, G-Man.”

Giles rolled his eyes. “Yes, well.” Then he looked more serious. “How well can you control your…transformation, Xander?”

Xander stood and stretched and noticed that someone had removed his shoes for him. He glanced at the clock. 7:04. Okay, still some time. “Pretty well,” he finally answered. “Oz makes a good teacher.”

“Can you shift at will, even when the moon’s not full?”

“Yeah, if I get myself riled up. Which I’m guessing isn’t going to be a problem today.”

“How long does it take?”

“About five or six minutes. If I really push it I can do it faster, but that hurts like hell.”

“All right.” Giles looked thoughtful, like he wanted to be taking notes. “And to change back?”

“Depends. If I’ve used up a lot of energy it can take a while—maybe fifteen minutes.”

“And I take it that while you are in wolf form you are a formidable fighter?”

Xander’s lips lifted into a feral grin. “I am. I took down a Haxil Beast all by myself a couple months ago. Spike just watched and cheered me on. Afterward, he called me a bloody brilliant fighter and then we…uh…celebrated.”

“This isn’t going to be easy,” Giles said, clearly choosing to ignore the end of Xander’s last sentence. “Wolfram and Hart is an ancient—“

The door opened just then, and Xander was grateful because he so didn’t need to hear a lecture on the history of evil law firms right now, and he was already well aware of the potential for disaster. Spike and Angel had told him all about their conflict with the firm, and he knew the conflict had cost them several friends.

Willow walked in, holding a paper bag by the handles in one hand and balancing a cardboard tray in the other. “Morning, sleepyhead,” she smiled at him.

“Good spell, Will. Thanks.”

She put the bag down, walked over to him, and held out the tray. He smiled happily at the green logo on the cups. “Venti triple espresso mocha,” she chirped at him. “A whole day’s worth of caffeine and sugar in one convenient package. I’m on my third, and I really gotta pee. Here.” She shoved the tray at him and ran off to the bathroom.

One of the cups was empty but the other was full, and he didn’t care that he burned his tongue on the first mouthful. It’d heal soon anyway.

By the time Willow re-emerged, he’d swallowed half his coffee, and he was feeling human again. Well, as human as he ever felt, nowadays.

“You were gone some time,” Giles said, a little accusingly.

“Yeah. I took a detour by Wolfram and Hart, just to see what I could do? But you were right—they’ve warded the building and I couldn’t do anything from the outside. Well, I probably could have just leveled the whole place, but that’s not so much a good thing with Spike still inside, is it?”

“Not so much,” said Xander. “Does this mean you can’t use your magic?” If he sounded worried, it’s because he was. Magic was just about all they had.

Willow’s face was serious. “No, I can use it. This just means we’re gonna have to go inside.”

 

It looked just like an office building. Smelled like one, too: floor cleaner and electronics and paper and aftershave and perfume and coffee. But something about it felt off, and made the little hairs on Xander’s neck stand up and his skin prickle. Spike was in here somewhere. Suffering.

On top of that, Xander was uncomfortable in the suit he wore. Willow had conjured it somehow, along with the things she and Giles were wearing, and he was pretty sure from the feel of it and the way it hung on him that it was a very expensive outfit indeed. But it was still a suit, and there was still a tie around his neck like a noose, and he wished he was in his usual faded jeans.

But he managed to keep his face neutral as he trailed behind Giles and Willow, across the wide, polished floor of the lobby to the reception desk. The woman sitting there was blonde and pretty, but there was something off about her, too. When she caught sight of Xander her eyes widened and her smile brightened, and he knew she was yet another demon inexplicably drawn to him. “Can I help you?” she asked, glancing momentarily at Giles but then looking around him at Xander again. Willow she ignored completely.

Giles cleared his throat. “Yes. We have an appointment with Mr. Novak.”

She looked surprised. Probably not too many people had meetings with the boss. “Your name, sir?”

“Lord John Hawkridge,” Giles said in his very most British accent. “And do hurry, please. We are running quite late due to your horrid traffic, and we have an another engagement shortly.”

The woman’s eyes had grown even bigger at the title and she spared another appreciative look at Xander before she tapped at her computer. Then she frowned. “Sir, I’m afraid I can’t find any record of an appointment for you today . Are you sure it was with Mr. Novak?”

Giles glowered at her. “Young lady, I am quite certain. But if your firm is unable to keep track of a simple thing like a business engagement, perhaps I ought to take my family’s business elsewhere.”

Xander gave her a look of faux chagrin, as if he was sorry he couldn’t stay any longer, and they turned to leave. “Wait!” she called. “I’m sure it was just an oversight, I’m very sorry. I’ll just call Mr. Novak’s secretary and let him know ya’ll are on your way up, okay?”

Giles rolled his eyes and looked put upon. He was really good at that. “Very well. But I shall expect better in the future.”

She nodded and spoke quickly into her phone, then turned another bright smile on them. “He’ll be ready to see ya’ll. Fourteenth floor. The elevators are right over there.”

Giles dipped his head magisterially, Xander quirked an eyebrow at the receptionist, who dimpled, and then they made their way to the elevators. They didn’t talk at all on the way up; the whole place might be bugged, for all they knew. Xander could hear all three of their hearts pounding away like the drums in one of the songs Spike listened to.

Novak apparently had the top floor all to himself, because when the doors swished open, they were greeted by another reception desk. Behind was a double set of mahogany doors, heavy and imposing. They didn’t really match the décor, Xander thought. A man was waiting for them in front of the desk. He was thirtyish and blandly handsome, with a careful haircut and squinting eyes. “Lord Hawkridge?” he said. Xander recognized the voice immediately from last night. “I’m so sorry about the confusion. Mr. Novak will be with you in just a moment. Can I get any of you something while you wait?”

_Yeah, how about my vampire_, Xander thought, but he said nothing, and Giles shook his head. “No. But do hurry.”

“Of course. Just a moment, please.” They sat in uncomfortable green chairs and the man disappeared behind a much smaller door to their right. Giles was smirking slightly with satisfaction. He’d done his homework before they came, betting that Wolfram and Hart would look up whatever name he gave them. If they did, they’d discover that there really was a Lord Hawkridge, some kind of baron or something, and he owned about half of England. He had a son and daughter in their late twenties, too, who probably didn’t look anything like Xander and Willow, so the three of them fervently hoped the lawyers didn’t manage to dig up any photos right away.

Willow smiled nervously at Xander, who realized he was jiggling his leg. He stilled it and tried to practice calming breaths like Oz had taught him. It helped, a little. At least he hadn’t yet burst out of the fancy clothes and into a fur coat.

The flunky popped back out. He was still smiling, but Xander could scent the adrenalin running through the man’s body, and he knew they’d been found out. No big surprise there, really. Novak would have to be really stupid not to see through their very transparent ploy. But that was okay—the main point now was to keep playing the game, to see how close they could get before their bluff was called.

“Lord Hawkridge, Mr. Novak will see you now.”

They all stood and followed the man as he opened the double doors and ushered them in.

It was a very large office with dark, expensive furniture and what was no doubt a sweeping view of the city. But Xander didn’t much appreciate it, because he was too busy staring at the three enormous men, each of whom had a gun in his hand and a frown on his face. To his left, sitting comfortably on the edge of a desk, was a small man with a little potbelly. What little hair he had was gray, but his slightly red face was unlined. His shoes probably cost more than Xander’s first car.

“Well,” he said, his voice surprisingly resonant for his frame. “A visit from nobility. Aren’t we lucky?” He chuckled as if he found himself very amusing. When none of them answered, he smiled easily at them. “So. _This_ is the rescue party?”

Xander wanted to rip the bastard’s throat out. He could almost taste the man’s blood, could almost feel skin and muscle giving beneath his jaws. But Willow and Giles were likely to get hurt or killed if he tried, and anyway, it wouldn’t get him his Spike.

Oh, but it would be so satisfying.

Xander made a huge effort and managed to remain in control.

“Bring us the vampire and your former employee, and allow us all to leave peacefully, and you won’t have any problems with us.” Xander was impressed with how calm and authoritarian Giles could make himself sound.

But Novak only laughed. “Problems! That’s funny. Now, why don’t you call your boss and tell him he can stop wasting perfectly good humans, and he should run his own errands.”

“My boss? I don’t know what—“

“Oh, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe he likes his humans to call him something else. Master Angel, maybe?”

Xander let out a snort and everyone’s eyes turned from Giles to him. “Angel is in no way my boss, and they’ll be snowboarding in hell before I call him ‘master.’ Asshole.”

Novak scooted off the desk and stepped close to them. Most people would have found his demeanor threatening, but Xander was delighted, because everyone was concentrating on him now, and that meant they’d mostly forgotten about Willow, who’d been trying to make herself seem small and assuming. Not a hard task for her really. But Xander heard her heart speed up for a few beats and then slow way down, and, in a voice that didn’t sound at all like herself, she spat out a few words in, he was pretty sure, Sanskrit.

There were quadruple _thunks_ as the goons and Novak’s assistant fell to the floor, conscious but paralyzed. Novak scurried backwards, aiming for the other side of his desk, and Xander could have laughed at the look of surprise on his face. Willow said another few words, and Novak collapsed, too, hitting his head on the edge of the desk as he did.

As Giles hurried over to relieve the men of their weapons, Willow pointed at the double doors and then at the room’s two additional doors, each time saying a single word. Xander heard locks snicking into place, and he’d be willing to bet no key was going to work on them right now.

The three of them stood over Novak’s body. His eyes were wide and he was breathing very quickly, as if he’d just run a race. His heart rate was so rapid Xander could barely make out the individual beats. Xander was no cardiologist, but he was pretty sure that Novak was close to a heart attack.

“Listen carefully,” Giles said. “You are going to call and have Spike and Lindsey brought here immediately. You will also have the Stone of Karthos brought up. You will not tell anyone why, or in any way indicate that there is a problem. If you do not follow these instructions, Willow is quite capable of removing all of your skin.”

Novak’s pale blue eyes rolled toward Willow, who smiled sweetly at him and said a single, harsh word. A strip of flesh about as wide as Xander’s thumb and a little longer peeled off the back of Novak’s right hand, revealing muscles and tendons below. Novak made a horrible, choked noise, a scream that was caught in his paralyzed throat. And Xander did something he’d tried only a few times before: he allowed his face to change just a little bit so that his eye flashed from warm human to wild wolf, and so that his fangs extended from the hint of a muzzle. He couldn’t hold this for more than a few seconds, but it was enough to send Novak completely over the edge into raw panic. His heart actually stuttered and stopped, but Willow said another word and it restarted, still racing and fitful. A large wet spot appeared at the crotch of Novak’s expensive gray pants and that made Xander grin gleefully.

“I’m gonna release you now. But if you try anything funny, I’ll freeze you back up again and _poof_ go your outsides. And I don’t know how well Xander here can control himself around so much fresh meat. Got it, buster?”

Novak couldn’t answer of course, but he made another sound that could have been interpreted as an affirmative. Xander reminded himself to never, ever cross Willow.

Willow said another couple of words and then evidently Novak could move again, because he twitched and scuttled onto his knees, holding his injured hand against his chest.

“Stand up!” Giles said impatiently.

Novak put his shaky left arm up and placed his hand on top of his desk, using it to haul himself up on unsteady legs.

“Who _are_ you?” he asked hoarsely.

“Spike’s friends,” said Willow, and Xander suppressed an urge to kiss her.

Giles picked up the phone and held it out toward the man. “Call.”

Novak managed to make his voice reasonably steady as he ordered someone to bring the prisoners and the rock to his office right away. The person on the other end must have questioned the order, but Novak glanced at Willow and Xander and said, “Do it! Now!”

While they waited, Xander wandered over to the other fallen men who were still motionless on the carpet. He kicked gently at the assistant and then less so at one of the other men, who he recognized by scent as being the guy who’d manhandled Spike the day before. None of the men looked angry, just terrified, which made his spine shiver and his skin twitch.

“You won’t get away with this,” Novak said. “Do you have any idea who you’re up against?”

Xander stalked over to him, satisfied when Novak shrank back slightly. “Do _you_? We beat bigger bads than you before we were out of high school. And that was before you hurt my boyfriend.” On the last word he leaned way into Novak’s personal space and sniffed noisily. “You smell like piss and fear, asshole.”

Then he ambled away to stand near the door. Giles and Willow were watching him, both looking slightly shocked. It might take a while for them to get used to the werewolf formerly known as doughnut boy.

A single sharp knock sounded on one of the double doors. Willow made a sign and the locks unlatched and the door swung open. Lindsey was standing there, barefoot, his clothing torn and dirty. One eye was bruised shut and dried blood was flaking under his swollen nose. His hands were behind his back and someone pushed him forward hard enough he nearly stumbled. Two men followed him inside, one of them big like the other goons, the other whip-thin and tall. The tall one was carrying a lumpy thing the size of a softball and the color of a ripe plum.

The men froze in astonishment as soon as they took in the scene before them, but before they had a chance to do anything, Willow slammed and locked the door behind them and made them collapse, too. The stone fell from the tall man’s slack hand and rolled a little across the floor before Willow snatched it up and stuffed it in her purse.

“Xander!” Lindsey said. “What the fuck?” Xander could see now that his wrists were tightly cuffed. They were bloody as well, as if he’d been struggling.

“Where’s Spike?” demanded Xander.

“I dunno. They dragged him off somewhere. I think I heard—“ He stopped abruptly and looked away.

“What?!”

“I think I heard him screaming, man,” Lindsey almost whispered. “Just a little while ago.”

Xander growled and barely heard Giles call his name as he dashed for the door. But before he got there, there was another knock. Xander snarled and skidded to a halt with his hand nearly on the knob.

Again Willow did her magic and the door swung open. There were three men this time. Two of them were dragging Spike between them. The vampire was naked and battered and, seemingly, unconscious. They stood and gaped, but the third man, a blocky-looking guy in khakis and a polo shirt, was still in the open doorway, and he shouted and started to run away.

There was a lot of noise and confusion then, shouting and swearing and loud _thumps_. But Xander didn’t really track most of it, because he’d taken off after the running man, who was heading for a door in the corner marked “Stairs.”

The guy was fast, but Xander was faster, and he caught up with him halfway across the room. The man backed against the wall and reached into his jacket pocket. Xander saw the flash of metal and, distantly, heard a small explosion, as he flung himself at his prey.

The man was a good shot. Had Xander been his old self, the bullet that tore through his chest, wreaking bloody havoc on his lung, would almost certainly have killed him. It surely would have slowed him down. Now, though, it only made him more furious and he allowed his hard-won control to slip away. He roared with pain and rage as his body reshaped itself, much faster than ever before, and, as the man struggled beneath him, Xander’s powerful jaws closed on the man’s throat.

He wasn’t totally consumed by bloodlust. In fact, he was fully aware that later, he was going to feel guiltier about this than he had over any rabbit or deer. But he was willing to live with the guilt, he really was, because it felt so good to feel the man’s flesh give, to taste the hot blood spurting into his mouth, to hear the crunch as he punctured the man’s trachea, and then the desperate wheezing as the dying man fought for breath. Then Xander shook his head, hard, and the man’s neck snapped, and suddenly the man was very, very still.

Xander dropped the dead man from his mouth, turned, and ran back into the office.

He swiveled his head quickly, looking around the room. Two more men were collapsed on the floor. The human who reeked of urine was pressed into a corner, his hands raised defensively before him. Another human—no, it was the not-quite-human, Lindsey—was crouched awkwardly behind the desk, his hands still bound. There were two more humans there, and Xander almost growled at them, but…ah, they were pack, weren’t they? They were gaping at him, wide-eyed, as they knelt next to….

Oh, no. His alpha.

In a single leap, Xander cleared half the room to land beside Spike’s prone body. Willow and Giles shrank back a little, but he ignored them to sniff and paw at Spike. Spike smelled of his own blood and his pale skin was livid with bruises and welts and cuts. But Xander couldn’t see Spike’s face, which was pressed to the floor, and Xander sank to his belly and whined and snuffled and licked at the back of Spike’s neck.

“Xan,” said a soft voice. “Let us help, okay?”

He whined again, but didn’t otherwise react as Willow and Giles slowly and carefully turned Spike onto his back. But when he saw the devastation to his alpha’s face and torso and groin, Xander threw back his head and howled. Spike’s face was so bloody and swollen as to be unrecognizable, and his chest and belly and genitals were mottled with burns and deep gouges.

On the other side of Spike, Giles hissed at him. “Enough! You’ll have every person in this blasted place charging up here now!”

Xander managed to stop howling, then, and instead licked at Spike’s face, hoping for some kind of response. Instead, though, Willow gasped and touched his side and said, “Goddess! You’re hurt!”

Xander shot her a quick look of impatience. What difference did it make if he was shot? His alpha was…. With some difficulty, he smothered another howl.

“We ought to leave. Now,” Giles said urgently.

Willow frowned. “But Spike. How—“

“I can carry him, if you take these things off me.” Lindsey had come out from behind the desk and was standing near them. Giles and Willow looked at him doubtfully, but Xander knew Lindsey was strong enough, and he didn’t sense any deception at the moment. He rose to his feet and trotted the few steps to Lindsey who, to his credit, held his ground. He swallowed loudly, though. But Xander only nosed at his manacles.

That must have been enough for Willow, because she stood, too, and came up next to Lindsey. She touched the metal around his wrists and murmured something. Xander sneezed from the scent of magic so close, but the cuffs opened and fell to the floor. Lindsey groaned as he brought his arms forward and then stood, twisting his shoulders and gingerly massaging his biceps.

“You’re not gonna bite me when I pick him up now, will you?”

Xander narrowed his eyes and huffed out a sort of bark. Lindsey shrugged then, but he walked to Spike and, as Xander watched closely, scooped the vampire gently into is arms. Giles shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over Spike’s damaged figure.

A moment later, Giles pushed Novak toward the door. Giles had a gun in one hand, undoubtedly taken from one of the paralyzed goons, and he kept it pointed at the center of the lawyer’s back. Willow must have put the cuffs on Novak, and the man looked deeply unhappy. “Your buddies here will be able to move again in a couple of hours.” Willow said. “You’re going to walk nicely with us and tell everyone to keep away.” She was doing pretty well, considering this was probably the first time she’d taken a hostage.

Novak and Giles led the odd parade out of the office and into the reception area. Xander padded alongside Lindsey, keeping an anxious eye on Spike. Everybody swung their heads to look at Xander when they saw what was left of the man he killed,. The shredded remains of Xander’s fancy clothing lay beside the corpse. But they all kept on walking, and then waited for the elevator.

They stood silently as the elevator descended. A muzak version of “Iron Man” was playing. Willow had curled her fingers in the fur between Xander’s shoulders, and it was surprisingly comforting to him, although not as much as Spike’s touch, of course.

On the fifth floor, the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. A woman and a man, both in suits, were deep in conversation, and they started to step inside. But when they caught sight of the car’s occupants, their mouths fell open and the elevator closed again in their faces.

It didn’t surprise Xander to discover a phalanx of security guards waiting for them on the ground floor, weapons drawn. He snarled at them. Giles prodded Novak sharply as they exited the elevator and, in a low voice, said, “Tell them to drop their guns and stay back.”

In a slightly wavering voice, Novak called out, “Get back! Place your guns on the floor!”

The guards looked at each other uncertainly and then, slowly, placed the weapons down. As Xander’s party walked slowly toward the door, the guards kept many paces away from them. Around the lobby, a scattering of other people stood and gaped. Xander saw the girl at the reception desk, frozen with her hand on the telephone and her mouth in a wide, crimson “O.”

Nobody tried to stop them as they proceeded across the wide, shining floor and then through the door that led to the parking garage. And there was their rented SUV, because Willow, as wise as ever, had foreseen that they’d need something roomy. Willow climbed into the driver’s seat and Giles pushed Novak into the seat beside her. Giles himself sat in the next row, right behind their hostage, so he could nestle the handgun against the back of the man’s skull.

Meanwhile, with a little difficulty Lindsey slid in beside Giles, still cradling Spike in his lap. Giles yanked a blanket out of the pocket behind Novak’s seat and completely covered Spike with it. Xander had shoved it there before they left, mindful of the need to protect Spike from the sun if their rescue was successful. Xander wished he could hold Spike, but he had no lap right now, so instead he hopped into the back of the vehicle and hung his head over Lindsey’s shoulder. “You’re droolin’ on me, dude,” Lindsey grumbled as Willow piloted them out of the garage.

Spike showed no signs of life, but at least he wasn’t dust.

As Willow drove around, turning here and there seemingly at random, Novak was panting quietly. Finally, he said, “What are you going to do to me?”

“Perhaps we shall let Xander have you,” Giles said coldly. Xander remembered a story or two he’d heard about Giles in his younger days, and suddenly found the idea of Ripper quite believable. But he growled his agreement and saw Novak shiver.

Still, Novak wasn’t a complete coward. “Whatever you do, the firm will find you. You’re going to regret this day very much.”

It was Lindsey who answered him. “You, too. If they let you live, the senior partners are gonna be really pissed at you. I know what they do to employees who tick them off, man. You’re better off getting eaten by a werewolf.”

Just then, the car hit a bump and Xander yelped. Suddenly, his gunshot wound was hurting, and he realized he was short of breath, too.

“Sorry!” Willow called from the front. “Are you okay, Xan?”

He yipped a small reply.

Xander was ready to start pacing in the small confines of the back of the SUV when Willow finally pulled it to a stop. They were on a residential street in some bland suburb, where a kid’s pink bike lay on its side on a neat lawn, and, next door, a beige house was flying a large US flag. Willow turned to Novak.

“We’re not gonna feed you to Xan ‘cause you’d probably give him indigestion. _Poostoy razeem_.” She waved her hand and made a sign with her fingers, and Novak slumped in his seat. Then she took off her seatbelt, leaned across him, and opened his door. She nodded at Giles, who pushed him out. Xander heard the small thunk as Novak hit the blacktop. Then Willow slammed the door shut, rebuckled, and drove away.

With a look of distaste, Giles removed the shells from the gun and shoved the weapon under his seat.

“What’d you do to him?” Lindsey asked.

“Just a little spell. I’ve wiped his memories completely clean—he won’t remember even his own name.” She sounded very satisfied with herself, Xander thought.

Lindsey whistled. “You can do that? Who _are _you people?”

“I think that explanations can wait,” Giles said.

“Where we goin’?”

“Back to your hotel.”

“But that’s right near Wolfram and Hart! They’ll find us—“

“No they won’t,” Willow said firmly. “Wards. They’re handy, you know.”

“Okay, but the firm has magic of its own, and they’re gonna regroup pretty quickly, and—“

“We’re as anxious to get out of here as you are,” Giles interrupted. “Right now we have a vampire and a werewolf to get indoors and tended to.”

From his perch in the back, Xander huffed his agreement.

[Chapter Eight](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/71348.html)

.


	8. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 8/12**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 8/12   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
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****

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

In the short time they’d been together, Xander had had a dismaying amount of practice in patching Spike up. He’d become really good at it, so good that he was fully aware that Spike sometimes exaggerated the extent of his injuries, just so Xander would fuss over him. But he surely wasn’t exaggerating now, and Xander had never had to doctor Spike while exhausted from shifting, and with a nasty hole perforating his chest and right lung. Or with Willow hovering next to him, asking him every three seconds if he was all right.

Even getting to their room had been a challenge. The hotel was pet-friendly, and maybe the clerk wouldn’t notice that the large, shaggy beast wasn’t quite a dog. But she’d surely notice that his chest was matted with blood. And she’d also notice that Lindsey was looking fairly banged up, and that he was carrying Spike, who was looking pretty much like a brutalized corpse. A naked, brutalized corpse. To top it all off, she might also be aware that Giles and Willow weren’t guests at the hotel.

Willow had tried to do a small glamour to cover up their odd situation. But apparently all the magics she’d already worked that day had drained her, and she couldn’t quite manage. That meant she wouldn’t be able to destroy the Stone right away, either. She and Giles had a quick conference in the car, aware that Xander was growing increasingly frantic over not being able to help Spike, and they formulated a plan.

First, Willow and Giles entered the hotel, pretending to be in the middle of a big argument. When a few minutes had passed, Lindsey followed them in, still carrying the blanket-draped Spike, Xander beside him. Inside, Willow stood in front of the desk, crying loudly and theatrically about a wedding dress in a lost suitcase, while Giles stood next to her, shouting British curses into his cell phone at a nonexistent airline employee. The clerk and concierge huddled desperately behind the counter, alternately looking at a computer screen and trying to console their upset customers. Xander used Lindsey’s legs to shield the humans’ view of him a little, as he and Lindsey slunk to the elevator as quickly as they could without drawing attention to themselves.

Apparently, their ploy had worked. Nobody had called after them and no hotel employees or police appeared at their door. Giles and Willow had even managed to get the suite next to theirs.

Xander had crept off to the bathroom to change back to human. He was grateful that Willow had some experience with weres, because she didn’t try to intrude as he went through the painful process. As soon as he could stand again he threw on some jeans and went back out to tend to Spike. But Willow had cried out when she saw the gunshot wound, and Xander had had to endure several moments of inspection from Willow and Giles before they bandaged him up and let him, at long last, go to Spike.

Spike had been laid out on the bed. Somebody had even pulled back the comforter so he was on the clean, white sheets. The parts of him that weren’t red or purple were almost as pale as the bedding.

With practiced hands, Xander gave Spike a quick towel bath so he could remove the crusted blood and grime and get a truer idea of the extent of Spike’s injuries. This wasn’t the worst he had ever seen his lover hurt—at least he wasn’t treated this time to peeks at Spike’s unvital organs—but it was still pretty bad. So Xander reached into his handy-dandy first aid kit, which Giles had fetched while Xander was changing, and took out the knife Danny Vega gave him. He was about to cut his wrist when Willow caught his wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing, mister?” she demanded.

“Feeding Spike.”

“Uh-uh. You’ve already lost plenty of blood.”

“He needs human, Will.” Xander sighed. “Look, I have the name of a place where we can get some. Maybe you or Giles could go. But in the meantime, I’m not going to let him just lie there like that.”

“Give him some of mine.” Everybody swung their heads to look at Lindsey in surprise. He was seated at the little table, looking tired and worn. “I guess I’m still edible,” he said.

Willow took the knife from Xander and brought it over to Lindsey, grabbing a glass tumbler off the minifridge as she went. “I’ll go pick up more, okay?” she said, as Lindsey sliced the soft skin of his wrist and then held his dripping forearm over the cup.

Xander caught himself licking his lips. “Uh, could you maybe stop at a grocery store too, Will? And get me a couple pounds of beef? I’m kind of…hungry.”

To his surprise, she didn’t look grossed out. She simply smiled at him. “Sure, Xan. Anything else?”

“Beer, please. Maybe a lot.”

“Christ, yeah,” Lindsey said, and Xander might have been annoyed, but it was hard to be really angry at a guy when he was bleeding into a glass for your boyfriend.

Xander gave her the name of the demon bar and she looked up the address on her phone before heading out. By then, the cup was full of Lindsey’s blood and Xander carefully tipped the thick liquid into Spike’s mouth. Spike didn’t really wake up, but he did swallow the stuff, so that was good.

Xander was considering putting his wrist to Spike’s mouth anyway when Giles tapped lightly on his shoulder. Xander turned to see Giles holding out another full cup of blood. A bandage was tied clumsily around his other hand.

“Giles!” Xander exclaimed.

Giles smiled wryly at him. “Yes, well, I never expected I’d be donating to Spike either. But I know how important he is to you, and….” His voice died off and he looked away.

Xander swallowed the lump in his throat, telling himself his eye was only watering because he was tired. “Thanks,” he said gruffly, taking the glass. This time, Spike’s eyelids fluttered a little as he drank, and Xander crooned softly at him, not caring that Giles and Lindsey were there to hear. “Hey, Big Bad, you’re safe. Everything’s fine now. I’m here and the cavalry’s arrived and it’s all cool. Wait’ll I tell you who you’re eating now!”

Spike didn’t wake up, but Xander thought his body looked more relaxed, more at peace. He thought some of the swelling on Spike’s face was going down, too. He dropped a tiny kiss on Spike’s forehead and tucked the sheets around him. No point bandaging him up. Some of his wounds were deep, but none were very big, and he wasn’t bleeding any more. With a good feed and some rest, Xander knew he’d heal pretty quickly.

Giles was still standing behind him. “Xander,” he said quietly. “You should sleep as well.”

But Xander shook his head. “Not until Willow’s back. I want to get more blood in him, and I have to eat, too.” Giles frowned but didn’t argue. “Look, G-Man. You’ve gotta be pretty wiped. Go catch some winks, okay?”

Giles glanced quickly in Lindsey’s direction. “You’ll be all right?”

“Yeah. Go.”

Giles nodded briefly, gave Lindsey a slight glare, and left.

A moment later, Lindsey stood. “Hey, I’m gonna go clean up, okay? Maybe take a crack at your first aid kit?”

Xander looked at him and actually felt a little guilty. Lindsey wasn’t in such great shape, either, and he’d carried Spike and bled for him, and nobody had bothered to fix him up at all. “Help yourself,” Xander said.

Then Xander was alone in the room with his vampire, and he stroked the messy curls out of Spike’s face and concentrated on not collapsing beside him.

By the time Lindsey was out of the bathroom, clean and in slightly better condition, Willow was knocking at the door. Xander hauled himself to his feet to let her in, and she entered with her arms full of paper bags.

“I’ve got a couple gallons of blood here. That’ll be enough, right? You should’ve seen this bar, Xan—demon cowboy wannabes! And there’s some steaks and a 12-pack of beer—Heineken’s okay, right? You used to drink Heineken—and a couple other things ‘cause I figured Lindsey probably wants to eat, too, and I figured he’s mostly a regular food kind of guy.”

Xander smiled at Willow. He missed listening to her. “Thanks, Will.”

She frowned, though. “Do you need to cook the meat somehow? Or are you just gonna eat it raw? ‘Cause no offense, but _eww_.”

“Yeah, even Spike thinks the whole raw meat thing’s kind of yuck. Why don’t you go get some sleep, and then you won’t have to watch me eat it.”

She looked doubtful.

“I’ll be fine, Will. And you need to recharge your battery so you can break that goddamn rock, right? Angel’s still…. It’s not pretty, what that thing does.”

“It really ain’t,” Lindsey chimed in. He was eyeing the bags hungrily. Wolfram and Hart probably hadn’t had his beating catered.

Eventually, Xander managed to shoo her out the door. He tore into the groceries then, and, as Lindsey munched on a sandwich and watched him, looking impressed, Xander downed four or five really good Porterhouses. Well, they were in Texas now, weren’t they? When the meat was gone he licked his fingers clean and washed it all down with a beer he emptied in one giant swig. Nobody ever said werewolves had good manners, he thought.

His raging hunger was satisfied but his body ached and he longed to touch Spike. So he poured a couple pints of blood into his vampire, shucked his own pants, and crawled into bed beside him. Lindsey yawned loudly and collapsed on the couch without bothering to pull out the bed. Xander gently spooned himself against Spike. His last thought before he fell asleep was a fervent hope that Willow’s wards held.

 

“Pet?” A cold, sharp finger poked at his shoulder. “Pet? Wha’?”

Xander pried his eye opened to find a pair of bleary blue ones inches away, blinking at him.

“Morning,” Xander said, smiling.

“Wha’ happened?”

Xander leaned his head forward until he was almost touching Spike’s. “Pulled your carcass out of trouble. Again.” He inhaled deeply, loving the scent of Spike.

Spike’s gaze sharpened a little and he stirred under the sheet. “You’re hurt? Smell your blood.”

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Xander chuckled.

“You’re a white knight, not a black one, love. What’s hurt?” Spike tried to struggle upright but failed, only falling back against the pillows with a groan of frustration.

“It’s no big deal. I’ll get you some blood and when you’re feeling better you can kiss it better, okay?”

“Mmm,” Spike said, looking skeptical.

Just then, a gravelly voice across the room complained, “Don’t you two ever give it a rest?”

Spike looked slightly startled. “You rescued that wanker, too?”

“Yeah. I mean, he’s more or less on our side at the moment. You don’t leave your own behind, you know?”

“Not even when they’re evil gits?”

“Not even then.”

Lindsey laughed softly.

But then a shadow passed across Spike’s face. “Ah, the Stone—“

“Got that too,” Xander said smugly.

“Got that—Pet, how’d you manage?”

“I brought in some backup.” To Spike’s puzzled look, he said, “Willow and Giles. They’re in the next room.”

Spike’s split and puffy lips lifted in a small smile.

 

When Willow and Giles came in, both looking slightly rumpled in the clothing they’d teleported in, Xander had showered and dressed and fed Spike and himself. Lindsey was dressed, too, and, despite the pre-noon hour, holding a cold bottle of beer against his blackened eye.

There were a few minutes of slightly awkward greetings, and then everyone spent some time filling in the others on what had happened. When Willow let it slip that Xander had been shot, Spike looked at him furiously. “Thought you said it was nothing!”

“It is. Forget it. It’ll heal.” They might have had a fight then, but Willow derailed it by going on with the tale of the rescue. Nobody mentioned the man Xander had killed. He could deal with that little detail later, when they didn’t have an audience.

Spike’s and Lindsey’s story was a short one. They’d been taken up to Novak’s office and Novak had immediately had his goons tackle Lindsey and chain him up. Spike had broken his bonds and tried to escape, but Novak’s men had been ready for him with a dart gun that conked him right out. They’d both been beaten and dragged into holding cells in the basement. And then apparently the torturer—Morris, Xander remembered—they’d called in for Spike had arrived early. He’d wanted to know about Angel, about what his weaknesses were and how the firm could get at him. Spike hadn’t told him a thing. “Stood up to better than those tossers,” Spike muttered. “Stood up to a bloody god and the First Evil. Can handle a few bloody solicitors.”

Xander kissed Spike’s cheek then, because he was upset Spike had been tortured, and because he wanted to acknowledge Spike’s bravery. And because he liked to kiss him. Spike’s glare softened a little.

Xander explained to Lindsey who Willow and Giles were, and Willow blushed when Xander said she was his oldest friend and an uberpowerful witch. Xander stumbled a little when he tried to explain what Giles was to him. Not his Watcher. Surely not just his former high school librarian. Finally, Xander said, “G-Man here is…closer to a father to me than Tony Harris ever was.”

Giles took off his glasses and wiped them furiously, but Xander caught the pleased grin that played across his face.

Spike resettled himself against the pile of pillows Xander had propped him on. With the additional blood he was looking improved already, and he could sit comfortably on the bed with Xander’s arm around his shoulder.

“Story-time’s been nice and all, but the pouf’s still hexed. You up for sorting that now, Red?”

Willow nodded eagerly and pulled the Stone from her purse. Xander didn’t like the look of it—it somehow managed to appear almost alive. It smelled of magic, too, and, unlike Willow, not in a good way.

“Pet,” Spike said softly, lightly bumping heads with him, and Xander realized with some chagrin that he was growling, low and deep, and everyone was staring at him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Okay,” Willow said with slightly false brightness. “It’s pretty easy to break, actually, but, um, it could be a little dangerous for anyone with magics in them.”

“That’s everyone here but the Watcher,” Spike said.

“Which is why I shall take it next door and dispose of it,” Giles said. “If you please, Willow.” Willow handed it over and Giles left. The rest of them waited silently, looking at one another nervously. Even Lindsey was uneasy.

A muffled _boom_ came from the adjoining room, and everyone but Spike leapt to their feet. They stood there a moment uncertainly until someone rapped at their door. Xander opened it and was immensely relieved to discover Giles standing there. His clothes and face were scorched, his hair was standing on end, and his glasses were cracked and askew, but he appeared unharmed.

He came into the room and collapsed heavily on the sofa. “Well, that’s taken care of,” he said.

“Xan,” Spike said. “Would you ring LA? Don’t quite have the energy myself.” Xander knew Spike must be really gone to admit that. He’d call and then shoo everyone out so Spike could rest. He could crash, too. His chest hurt.

His phone was on the nightstand next to him, and he picked it up and had it dial the Hyperion. The person that answered was female, and, from the sound of it, furious.

“What the bloody hell are you up to? Why haven’t you rung?”

“Sorry, Kyna. We’ve had…a few adventures. How’s Angel?”

“Had a bloody fit, didn’t he? And now he’s back to himself but won’t wake.”

Xander smiled widely, and saw Spike sag in relief. “He’ll be his usual bastard self soon, I promise.”

“Good.” The tone was still a little petulant, but Xander thought she sounded reassured, too. “He’s too heavy to keep carrying about.”

Xander snorted out a laugh, and so did Spike, whose keen hearing had picked up the comment. “Okay, so I think we’re gonna get the hell out of here as soon as we’re up to a drive.” He stretched experimentally, feeling the sharp twinge of torn muscle. But he knew he’d be better pretty soon, and he really didn’t want to stay in Dallas a minute longer than necessary. “Maybe by tomorrow night, okay?”

There was a brief pause on the other end. “If Angel’s going to be mended….”

“You want to head back as soon as he’s on his feet again. Got it. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Another pause, this time slightly longer. “Erm, perhaps I should stay until you arrive. Just to make sure.”

Spike cocked an eyebrow at Xander, who shrugged. He’d have thought she’d be thrilled to fly home right away. But Xander had long since given up trying to understand women in general, and slayers in particular. “Um, okay, sure. We’ll call you from the road, then, give you an ETA.”

“Excellent.” Her voice was sharp and brisk again. “Good-bye.”

Willow and Giles looked pleased when Xander told them of Angel’s recovery. But Lindsey was frowning. “Look, guys,” he said. “You’re pretty impressive. But you can’t just scoot back to LA and think Wolfram and Hart’s gonna forget about you. After this stunt those fuckers are gonna be really pissed off at you, and they ain’t gonna leave you alone just because you’re in California.”

They all looked at each other, but it was Xander who said it. “I know.”

“What are you gonna do? You can’t hide, you know. They’ll find you. They’ll—“

“Not going to sodding hide.” Spike’s voice was thin and raspy, but resolute.

Lindsey looked puzzled. “So then?”

Even though Spike had his human face on, his smile was fully demonic and feral. “We’ll fight.”

 

Xander never got sick anymore, but his injury made his skin feel a little hot and feverish. So it was wonderful when everybody else left the room—even Lindsey, who’d struck up a conversation with Giles about something or other—and Xander was able to strip again and cuddle up again next to his nice, cool vampire. They gingerly wrapped their arms around each other and Spike murmured sleepily into Xander’s neck, “Berk.”

“Yeah? Why am I berkish now?”

“Could have got yourself killed, pet.”

“As if that’s ever stopped me before. Anyway, what was I supposed to do? Leave you there?”

“They’d have dusted me soon enough. Then you’d have been free of me.”

“Free of you? Yeah, sure. I’m just counting the days until I’m rid of you so I can take up a torrid affair with the real love of my life.”

“Who’s that, love?” Spike sounded half asleep.

“Why, Angel, of course!”

Spike poked him, hard, fortunately on the uninjured side of his ribs. “Hey! Wounded hero here!”

“Pfft. I’d slap your arse if I could reach it.”

“Save that thought for when we’re less full of holes, okay?”

Spike suckled at Xander’s neck after that, and Xander thought he’d fallen asleep. But then he stopped and, in a quiet, serious tone, said, “You could, you know.”

“Could what?”

“Be free of me. If you wanted. You don’t have to….”

Suddenly Xander couldn’t breathe right, not even through his unpunctured lung. “Spike? Do you want me to…to go?”

Spike levered himself up on his elbow so he could look into Xander’s face, an effort that probably hurt. His eyes were bright in the dark room. “No! Christ, no. It’s only…you got stuck with me, didn’t you? You were only then finding yourself. Didn’t really have a go at….”

“At what? Sowing my wild oats? I’ve sowed all the oats I want, Spike. More than. I’m a big boy now and I know what I want, and getting stuck with an emotionally volatile vamp is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Yeah?” Spike’s face still showed the insecurity he tried so hard to hide from the world. But he couldn’t fool Xander, not anymore.

“Yeah.”

Spike collapsed against Xander, practically burrowing into his body. “Me too,” he whispered into Xander’s skin.

 

It took two days, actually, but then Spike was up and walking, only a little wobbly, and the fiery pain in Xander’s chest had receded to a dull ache. Willow and Giles packed up the things they’d managed to accumulate in Dallas and then caught an actual airplane bound for Atlanta, with a connection there to Heathrow. Apparently teleporting was reserved for unlife-threatening emergencies. Of course, before they left there were hugs and admonitions—“Do be careful, Xander”—and promises to help figure out what to do about Wolfram and Hart.

Angel called and actually almost thanked them for destroying the Stone, which was a surprise for them both. He seemed anxious for them to get back, too, a feeling shared by Spike and Xander and even Lindsey.

As soon as it was dark they chucked their stuff into bags and checked out of the hotel. Spike kept his arm slung around Xander’s waist as they walked to the van. A bystander would probably have assumed it was just out of affection, rather than the need for support.

Xander helped make Spike comfortable in the back and then climbed into the driver’s seat to take the first shift. Lindsey sat in the passenger seat and helped steer them out of the city, and then leaned his head against the window and watched the freeway roll by. Xander thought his passengers were both asleep, and drove in silence until he stopped somewhere outside Abilene to refill the tank. He bought himself an enormous cup of bad coffee, too, then got back in the van and continued heading west.

A few miles later, Lindsey startled him slightly by speaking in a voice barely more than a whisper. “You folks watch out for each other.”

“Yeah, I guess we do.”

No sound for a while except the hiss of the tires and the thrum of the engine.

And then, in a tiny voice that reminded Xander absurdly of his cousin Derek when Derek was five or six, Lindsey said, “Why?”

Xander shrugged. “’Cause we love each other, I guess.”

Lindsey snorted dismissively, but Xander caught his reflection in the window glass, and he looked a little wistful.

“Wouldn’t you and Lamont—“

“Risk our lives for each other? Nah. I mean, he’s the only one in my family I could half-stand, but he wouldn’t put his neck on the line for me.”

Xander had no real response to that. “Too bad, man.”

“Ahh, my family’s all a bunch of bastards anyway.”

“You think that gives you an excuse for being an even bigger asshole? I mean, Tony and Jessica Harris were no prizes either, believe me, but you don’t see me hanging out with evil demon lawyer guys.”

“I didn’t know…at first, I didn’t know what they were. I thought I was just gettin’ a lucky break.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re a smart guy. You knew.” Xander wasn’t even sure why he was pursuing this conversation. He didn’t want to hear any of the man’s excuses. Well, it passed the time, anyway. They had a lot of miles still ahead of them. “Besides, what about the part where you tried to get Spike dusted, and got him hexed instead? And the torture part, with Angel and Spike both? Can’t blame Wolfram and Hart for that.”

“The son of a bitch had me _shot_! Didn’t even bother to do it himself.” Lindsey was louder now. Xander hoped he didn’t wake Spike up.

“Yeah, well, newsflash: Angel’s a dick. Still no excuse. And I know how you played Spike, long before he did you any harm.” Just thinking about it now made him angry, and he was too keyed up still to maintain his usual control over the wolf. So he clicked on the radio to a station playing bad country music and started singing along.

Eventually Lindsey really did fall asleep, or did a pretty convincing imitation of it, anyhow, complete with light snoring. Xander drove for mile after empty mile, thinking of nothing but how badly he wanted to get home—and the Hyperion really did feel like home, now—and get himself and his vampire all better so they could exhaust each other in pleasant ways. He considered some of those pleasant ways, some old favorites, some new ones he’d like to give a shot, until that coffee was doing nothing to keep him awake but plenty to stretch his bladder. They were nudging up to the Mexican borders then—both New and old—and dawn had begun to paint the sky a watery orange.

He pulled into a Shell station and Lindsey startled awake when he cut the engine. From the back of the van, Spike chimed in, too. “Pet?”

“Just a pit stop. Lindsey, you ready for a turn?”

Lindsey yawned and stretched. “Sure. Just let me take a leak and grab somethin’ to eat.”

It didn’t take long to get back on he road, this time with Lindsey behind the wheel. Xander crawled under the blankets with Spike, who wrapped himself around Xander with a contented sigh. “How you holding up?” Xander asked.

“Right as rain. Should be all mended in a few days. You?”

“Tired is all.”

“Your chest?”

“Kinda sore. No big deal.”

When Spike spoke next, his voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. “Xan?”

“Hmm?” Xander considered chucking off his shirt and jeans but decided it was too much effort.

“Erm, Red and I had a bit of a chat.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. When you were in the shower.”

“About what?” Xander was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“She told me you killed a bloke.” Oh. That. Xander pressed his eyes closed and said nothing.

“Your first, innit?”

“First human, yeah.”

“How do you feel about that, love?”

“What are you now, a demon shrink?”

Spike tweaked Xander’s earlobe. “Have to look out for you, don’t I? You’re still a white hat, and I want to make sure—“

“I’m fine, Spike. Really. The fuckers _hurt_ you. They—“ And then, much to his surprise and complete mortification, Xander began to cry.

Spike held him tight and combed fingers through Xander’s unruly hair and made small soothing noises. “’S all right, pet. You did what you had to.”

“I don’t give a damn about that shithead,” Xander sobbed. “I hope he’s twisting in hell. Gods, they _hurt_ you, Spike! They hurt you and they just about dusted you and if Willow and Giles hadn’t—“

“Shh, pet. Old Spike’s been through a lot worse than that. Hell, that wanker Angelus could outdo that job on a day when he was in a _good_ mood. ‘M fine now, yeah? Shh.”

Xander bawled a while longer and Spike comforted him, not even caring that Xander was getting tears and snot all over his shirt. When the blubbering finally died out Spike took his shirt off and used it to wipe Xander’s face clean, and then peppered his nose and cheeks and lips with tiny kisses. Xander sniffled and buried his face in the crook of Spike’s neck.

Before he fell asleep, though, Spike had another question for him. “Xan? Which one did you snuff?”

“Um….” Xander thought for a moment. “He was kind of a big guy, in a green polo shirt, and—“

“Did it feel good when you bit him?”

“Yeah. It…it felt really good, Spike.”

“Good,” Spike said in a satisfied tone. “The bloke in green was Morris, the one who did most of the work on me.”

In the dark, snuggled against his vampire, Xander smiled.

[Chapter Nine](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/71532.html).

.


	9. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **Twice Bitten, Chapter 9/12** _

**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 9/12   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
---  
  
****

CHAPTER NINE

 

“What the hell happened?”

Angel looked fine, looming big as usual, his hair gelled upright again, his handsome, heavy brow set in a frown. And looking fine was more than you could say for the group just back from Dallas. Spike had been able to limp into the Hyperion on his own steam, but now he slumped, looking frail and worn out. Xander wasn’t much better. His gunshot wound had started to itch maddeningly somewhere around Phoenix. He knew that was a good sign—it meant he was healing—but it drove him crazy, and he couldn’t stand the feel of his shirt on his skin. So he stood in the lobby bare-chested and bandaged, with his face stubbly and his eye dry and bloodshot. Even Lindsey looked rough. The swelling had gone down on his nose, but he still sported a pretty spectacular shiner.

“We ran into a little trouble,” Xander said.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Xander could have pointed out that they’d been there saving Angel’s ass, and that the whole stupid thing had been Angel’s idea to begin with, but he didn’t have the energy. Even Spike didn’t take the bait, but instead sagged against Xander.

Kyna, though, whacked Angel on the side of the head. Hard, judging by the way he flinched. “Can’t you see they’re done in? Let them have a rest.”

And to Xander’s surprise, Angel only nodded a little sheepishly. “Fine. But we’ll talk later,” the big vampire said. He walked over, then, and grabbed Lindsey’s arm. “C’mon.” Lindsey didn’t resist at all, but just trudged wearily toward the basement door.

“Wait!” Xander said, struck with a pang of guilt. He remembered what Lindsey’s living conditions had been like for the past year. “Let him keep his clothing and his voice, okay? He was…he was okay on the trip. Let him at least talk to his brother for a while.”

Angel scowled but didn’t argue with him. He led Lindsey away.

Xander turned his head and kissed the side of Spike’s head. “Gonna be able to make it up the stairs all right? ‘Cause I’m not sure if I can carry you this time.”

“I can,” Kyna said. She smiled at Spike. “You’re a wee thing compared to your grandsire.”

Spike looked slightly indignant for a moment, and then he chuckled. “Nah, I can manage, Slayer. Why don’t you see if Captain Fat Arse needs help with the McDonalds?”

By the final flight of stairs, Xander practically was carrying Spike, but they managed to make it at last to their own room. It looked wonderful. Xander helped Spike to the bed, and then pulled off Spike’s boots and jeans, and lifted his vampire’s t-shirt over his head, so that Spike was left bare and beautiful, despite the fading marks on his body. Then Xander stripped off his own shoes and socks and pants and boxers. He looked longingly at the bathroom for a moment—a bath or shower would feel really wonderful—but decided he was too beat. So he climbed into bed beside Spike.

Spike immediately scooted toward him and sleepily suckled on Xander’s neck. Xander fell asleep like that, thinking how good it felt to be home.

 

The hotel made a lot of noises. It groaned and creaked like an old man. There were rustlings in the walls where mice crept, and in the attic where pigeons roosted. Pipes clattered. Sometimes, somewhere downstairs a door slammed.

Xander liked the noises. They were comforting, familiar. As was the feel of the vampire against him, limp and not breathing, still deeply asleep. Sometimes, Spike had dreams that made him flail and cry out, and Xander’d never quite had the courage to ask what they were about. Now, in any case, Spike was silent and still. Sleeping like the dead.

Soon enough, Xander knew he’d have to get up. His bladder was starting to get insistent and his arm was asleep under Spike’s weight. But just now it was nice to spend a few minutes imagining them in a safe, warm cocoon where evil lawyers would never find them, where nothing bad would ever happen to them again.

He drifted pleasantly like that a little while, and was just deciding he really did need to get up and take a leak, when he felt Spike’s chest start moving against him, and little puffs of air eddied across his skin.

“Xan,” said Spike.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Hungry?”

“Starved. But I need a shower first.”

“How about a bath? For two?” Spike yawned.

Xander kissed his head. “Even better. If you’d just move your dead weight off of me, oh light of my life, I’ll go get it ready.”

“’Kay” Spike said lazily, then slowly rolled off of him.

Xander winced a little and stretched, feeling the circulation return to his extremity. He meandered into the bathroom, used the toilet, and started the water in the tub. Then he pulled and tugged the bandages off, and was pleased to see only a small, puffy scar about two inches under his right nipple. He turned and looked over his shoulder. There was a slightly larger red mark halfway down his back. He wondered what would have happened if it had hit his spine—could werewolves regenerate nerve cells?—and then shivered slightly and decided he was better off not thinking about it.

Spike had dozed off again, so Xander woke him with a light kiss on the bridge of his nose, and then another on his pointy chin. “Thy bath awaits, master,” he said with a bow.

Spike sat up and yawned hugely. “Could get used to you calling me that.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re already alpha. It’s not fair. I should get to be master.”

Spike used Xander’s outstretched hand to lever himself to his feet. “Not proper for a vampire to call a human master now, is it?”

“Ah, but I’m not really human, now, am I?” Spike’s injuries didn’t look any worse than Xander’s own now, not with all the rest he’d had and all the blood Xander had poured down his throat. But still, Xander slipped his arm around Spike’s waist and they walked slowly together toward the bathroom. He felt languid, like he was under water already. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

He lowered himself into the tubful of steaming water, then Spike climbed in too, settling himself between Xander’s legs with his back against Xander’s chest. Xander leaned his head back against the cool edge of the tub and closed his eye. He clasped his hands around Spike’s belly and Spike rested his own arms atop Xander’s. They were quiet a while.

“I would, you know,” Spike finally said.

“Would what?”

“Call you master.”

“Hmm. Would you be naked except for my collar when you did?”

“Whatever pleases my master.”

Xander raised his head so he could nuzzle against the side of Spike’s neck, just under his ear. Gods, he loved to bury his nose in Spike’s hair, against his soft skin. Spike’s scent was like a drug to him.

Spike needed it just as much, because he made a throaty sort of mewling sound that went straight to Xander’s groin, making his cock harden and his balls throb. “You up for this, sweetheart?” he asked, and, when his wandering hands discovered that Spike was just as aroused, he laughed. “Yeah, you’re up, all right.”

Spike did an interesting little wiggle against him and Xander gasped. Then Xander wrapped his palm around Spike’s cock, a little gingerly, remembering how bruised and swollen it had been a few days ago.

“Not made of sodding china, pet.” Spike thrust up into his hand. “Don’t have to be so careful.”

“You’re not sore anymore?”

Spike rumbled and arched up again. The taut globes of his ass dragged very nicely along Xander’s trapped erection. “Not sore. _More_, love!”

Xander obediently tightened his grip and was rewarded with another loud groan. While his right hand stroked firmly, he spider-walked his left up Spike’s stomach and to his chest, then rubbed the hardened nub of a nipple with his thumb. “Your hands feel so good,” Spike panted. “Big. Hot. Rough.” Xander’s hands were calloused from his carpentry, while Spike’s were perpetually as smooth as they were when he died. Poet’s hands, Xander sometimes teased him lightly. Right now those long, strong digits were kneading at Xander’s thigh, like an enormous cat.

“Want to take this to the bed, Spike? You could—“

“Don’t stop! I need…need this now. Get the feel of them off me. Please.”

Xander was suddenly furious again at the reminder of someone else touching his lover. He growled, a low, warning sound.

Spike twisted his head around to look at Xander. “You’re angry with me, pet?”

“No! Oh gods, no!” Xander kissed Spike’s damp shoulder. “It’s those fuckers. They touched what’s m—“ He stopped. Maybe Spike didn’t want to hear this. Maybe it was too much.

“Say it, Xan,” Spike said hoarsely. “Please.”

“Mine. You’re mine.”

Spike closed his eyes tightly and shuddered against him. “Again,” he rasped.

“Mine!” Xander nearly shouted, and it felt good, felt really _damn_ good, as a matter of fact, and then he bit hard into Spike’s corded neck. Spike howled and bowed his back. Xander felt Spike’s cock pulse and twitch in his grip and then the familiar scent of Spike’s come filtered through the water to his sensitive nose. A moment later, Spike collapsed bonelessly back against Xander’s chest.

When Spike caught his breath, and Xander had lapped up the small trickles of blood from his white skin, turned his head and smiled broadly. “Bloody brilliant, love.”

“I meant it, you know.”

Spike nodded. “Good.”

Xander groaned and pushed a little at Spike’s shoulder as he tried to sit upright. “C’mon. Let’s hop in the shower and get really clean, okay?”

“But you didn’t—“

“You can owe me one for later. I’m _starving_!”

Spike poked at Xander’s stomach, which was as flat and toned as it was back in high school, when he was on the swim team. More, even. “Good thing you have the wolf metabolism or you’d be big as a house,” Spike said. Then he rose out of the tub and dripped his way over to the shower, where he turned the faucet on. Xander heaved himself out, too, and followed.

It was a no-nonsense type of shower, with a minimum of naughty touching. Still, after the water was off, just before they reached for their towels, Spike grabbed Xander’s shoulders and leaned their foreheads together. “Wish I could have seen you tear that tosser apart, love. I’ll wager it was bloody beautiful.”

“Not really. I was so furious, Spike, I just…I just ripped into him. Didn’t even think about it.”

“’Course you were furious. Wanker’d just shot you.”

“I barely even felt it. I was angry over what they’d done to you, sweetheart.”

“Because I’m yours,” Spike said, his voice full of wonder.

“Because you're mine. And me….?”

“Mine, pet.”

And they kissed until they were shivering from mingled cold and heat.

 

Xander rubbed at his full stomach and eyed the scene before him.

Lindsey and Lamont were locked in the cell. Lamont was sitting on the mattress, pale and shocky looking, but Lindsey looked calm and well-rested. He was standing at the front of the cage, one hand wrapped loosely around a bar, the other stuck in his front pocket. Angel was a few feet away, chewing his lip thoughtfully, and Kyna was standing beside him. Very close beside him, actually, and Xander and Spike exchanged a glance.

“Took you long enough,” Angel grumbled as they made their way down the stairs. “Thought you were gonna sleep all day.”

“Who said we were sleeping, Peaches?” Spike leered. Angel made his pained face.

Spike hopped down the last few steps and pulled over a box to sit on. Xander stood behind him and rested his hands on Spike’s shoulders. “So,” Spike said. “What were you lot nattering about?”

“I was just tellin’ about the good time we had in Dallas,” Lindsey explained.

Angel whirled and glared at Xander and Spike. “You both almost got yourselves killed!”

Xander saw the genuine fear in Angel’s eyes, so he slapped Spike’s shoulder lightly before he could retort. “It’s not the first time for either of us. It turned out okay, though.”

Angel opened his mouth as if he was going to yell again, then shut it. His posture softened and Xander was surprised to see an almost-smile on his face. “Thanks,” Angel murmured. “To, uh, both of you.”

Even from where he stood, Xander could tell that Spike was surprised, too. Angel didn’t thank him often. Or, well, ever, actually.

“Ain’t gonna thank me, too, big guy? I put myself on the line, too.”

Angel looked at the man sourly, but it was Spike who spoke next. “He did. When those twats came to drag us away, he fought them. And when they took us downstairs, and they were…not treating me very nicely…I heard him, telling them to let me go. Said it wasn’t me they were after.”

Xander hadn’t known that. He shot Lindsey a grateful glance that the man acknowledged with a quirk of his lips.

But Angel wasn’t convinced. “I don’t care. He’s a scheming bastard and can’t be trusted. He’d sell his own mother if he thought it’d profit him.”

“Ma wasn’t worth much anyway,” Lindsey said and, over on the mattress, Lamont nodded his agreement.

“You haven’t been all that aboveboard with him either,” Spike pointed out. “You two have this stupid nancy feud, like it’s a contest to see who’s the biggest prick.”

“At least I’m trying to do some good, William, while he’s—“

“Ya all are a bunch of feckin’ plonkers!” Kyna said, and then dissolved into even more incomprehensible Irish-accented gibberish. Judging by the look on Angel’s face, whatever she was saying wasn’t very kind.

When she’d paused, maybe just to take a breath, Spike said, “Uh, princess? Need a translation here for the Paddy-impaired.”

The glare she gave him was about two steps short of a flying stake, but then she spoke using less vernacular, slowly, like she was explaining things to learning disabled first graders.

“If this man is telling the truth, you have a powerful group of enemies after your arses. Right?”

They all made general noises of assent.

“And instead of doing something about it, you’re standing around, arguing amongst yourselves. Where’s that going to get you?”

Angel held up a hand, “But—“

“Ah!” she said, and he shut right up. Xander heard Spike stifle a snort, and Xander had to fight to keep a straight face, too. “Stop acting like children. You!” She pointed at Lindsey, who flinched back a little. Xander didn’t blame him. “What do you want with this Wolfram and Hart?”

“I want to be rid of ‘em. I want those motherfuckers wiped off the planet.”

“And you?” she asked Angel.

Grudgingly, he said, “Same.”

“You two?” This time she’d turned her eyes on Spike and Xander.

“I want to make sure they never hurt Spike again.”

Spike squeezed Xander’s hand, which was still on his shoulder. “Want them gone,” he said.

“If you all have the same goals, can’t you work together instead of squabbling?”

“She’s right,” Spike said, standing. “It’s the only chance we have to beat them.” Off Angel’s skeptical look, he added, “You don’t have to marry the sod, you great pillock. Just cooperate for a bit. After Wolfram and Hart are gone you can go back to playing your games with each other, yeah?”

Angel and Lindsey stared at each other, looking like overgrown rebuked schoolboys. But then they nodded at each other. “Guess if I can work with Spike….” Angel muttered. Kyna hit him again.

Xander was really beginning to like this Slayer.

 

The five of them were in Spike’s and Xander’s suite. Angel was in the Punishment Seat, of course, while Lindsey sat backwards on one of the chairs from their kitchenette. Spike and Xander sprawled across the loveseat with their legs tangled together. Kyna paced back and forth, slowly traversing and retraversing the room.

“Will he really stay away?” Xander asked Lindsey.

“Yeah. I think he’s seen enough of my old bosses. Besides, Lamont was always more a runner than a fighter.” Angel had given Lamont a thick stack of bills—not without complaining about it, of course—and a newly minted set of false ID. By all accounts, the younger McDonald was heading for Alaska and a job on a fishing boat. He’d cried a little when he and his brother hugged before parting, but he also didn’t dawdle at putting plenty of distance between himself and the Hyperion. It was a good thing for them all, really. Xander could sense, the vampires could sense, probably even Lindsey could sense that the man was weak. Much more of a liability than a benefit.

Which left the five of them.

Xander had faced worse odds.

“All right,” Kyna said. “What are our assets?” She was perfectly understandable when she was calm like this. And she was calm, and forceful, like a general strategizing with her troops.

She seemed to fall naturally into taking charge, a trait that Xander remembered all too well another Slayer having. But that was fine now. Neither Spike nor Xander particularly wanted to be chief, and none of them would have let Lindsey assume the leadership mantle. Xander might have expected Angel to chafe over it a little—he was a bossy old thing—but he didn’t complain at all. Instead, Xander kept catching the vampire staring at the Slayer in open-mouthed awe. Spike had whispered in Xander’s ear something about the pouf and his thing for domineering blondes, and Xander had to hide his smirk guiltily behind a hand.

“All five of us know how to fight,” Angel pointed out now. “We’re all good at it.” Xander felt a swell of pride at being included in that assessment.

“Two vampires, a werewolf, a Slayer, and…whatever he is,” Kyna said, waving in Lindsey’s direction. “Good for starters. What else?”

“Weapons. I have a bunch here. I know where I can get more.”

“What kind?”

Angel shrugged. “Swords, spears, clubs, knives, cross-bows....”

Spike tsked. “Anything manufactured after the Middle Ages, Liam?”

“I don’t trust guns. Explosives are too temperamental.”

“I gotta say, I’m with the Champion on this,” Lindsey said. “Conventional weapons of any kind aren’t gonna do us much good.”

“They have _dragons_,” Spike added, and shivered.

Kyna paused in her walking. “So we need unconventional weapons, then. And that would be?”

Lindsey said, “Magic.”

“Fuck,” Spike muttered under his breath. “More bleeding hocus-pocus.”

But that gave Xander an idea. “Willow’s a really powerful witch. She’d help us, you know she would. And she’s got a whole coven, doesn’t she? Maybe they’d help, too.”

“Excellent,” Kyna nodded. “Any other magical assistance we can round up?”

Xander looked at Spike and raised his eyebrows. Spike looked pained, but then he nodded. “I know a wizard in Chicago. I could ask him.”

“The one who cursed Spike for me?” Lindsey asked.

Spike glared. “Yeah, that’s the one, cowboy.”

Kyna was walking back and forth again. “We need information as well. Lindsey, you can supply us with a great deal of it, yes?”

Lindsey nodded. “I’ll tell everything I know. But I only know bits and pieces, really. I never got high enough in the food chain to get the whole picture.”

“Who else could help?”

“Wes could have,” Angel said sadly.

Spike and Xander looked at each other again. “Rupert,” Spike said.

“Very good. And now…we need more personnel, I think.” She sighed then and looked unhappy. “Such as an army of Slayers.”

Xander hadn’t thought of that. But with a smaller group of Slayers than Buffy had now, they’d defeated the First Evil. Of course, Spike had had to burn for that to happen, and Xander was so not letting that occur again.

Kyna was still frowning. “Buffy and I don’t…always get on.”

Xander could see that. It’s probably why Buffy had chosen this girl to send to LA to begin with. “I can talk to her,” he offered. “We go way back, you know.”

“She has histories with several of you, I believe.” Kyna was looking at Angel as she said this, and Angel appeared extremely uncomfortable.

“Um, yeah. But that history, it’s…history. I mean, there was the soul thing, and later Cordy, and Buff was still cookie dough, and now…now she’s baked. I guess,” Angel added lamely.

Kyna was staring at him in confusion.

“What the old sod means is Buffy has long since moved on to greener pastures, leaving Himself high and dry and happy for company.”

If Angel could have blushed, he would have, Xander was sure. Instead, he just looked down at the floor and mumbled a half-hearted curse at Spike, who simply smirked back. Kyna, though, looked considerably relieved, and for a second she might have almost smiled. Then she squared her shoulders and nodded. “Right, then. Some of us have some phone calls to make.”

[Chapter Ten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/71881.html)


	10. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 10/12**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 10/12   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
---  
  
****

CHAPTER TEN

 

Xander groaned and collapsed into bed. Every muscle in his body was complaining and he was so exhausted he thought he might never move again. He flopped helplessly as Spike tugged his clothes off him and didn’t even flinch when a cold hand patted his ass.

“Get you sorted right away,” Spike said.

Xander wanted to say that he absolutely did not have the energy or strength for any sorting, but he couldn’t even make his mouth move. He heard Spike’s bare feet pad away on the carpet and water running in the bathroom. A few moments later, Spike returned. The mattress dipped and Spike knelt over him, straddling him. Spike’s soft cock brushed against the small of his back, and normally that would have been really nice, but not now, not when—

Oh. Warm liquid dripped between his shoulderblades and then hands—strong, _warm_ hands—began to rub the oil into him. “Uuuuhn,” he managed to say.

Spike chuckled. “You like that, pet? Heated everything under the tap.”

Xander made another incoherent but happy sound. He couldn’t possibly talk. He was melting. Spike knew exactly where to dig in his fingertips or the heels of his palms to work Xander’s muscles loose, keeping him just barely on the good side of pain. Xander grunted when Spike hit a particularly hard knot near his spine.

“Almost finished, pet?”

Xander nodded into the pillow. He guessed things would be in pretty good shape when their guests arrived in two days. He’d spent the last week getting the old hotel ready for them, repairing walls and plumbing and furniture and wiring, making sure the kitchen and the water heaters and everything else were able to handle a crowd. He’d even got the elevators running. Spike and Lindsey and Kyna worked hard, too, but he was the one directing them and spending his day running up stairs and down long hallways, usually while carrying lumber and tools. Meanwhile, Angel had ordered truckloads of mattresses and linens, and, with Kyna’s advice, had got the pantry and the walk-in fridge and freezer all stocked. He’d been gathering weapons, too, piling them in the training room and lobby and basement. And he’d also been scurrying around to magic shops and various demon businesses, gathering supplies from the lists Willow and Danny Vega had emailed him.

Despite his weariness, Xander was happy. He felt a sense of accomplishment, more than he had in years. He felt needed. And, although he knew that repaired dry-rot and patched holes in pipes in no way meant they were going to defeat Wolfram and Hart, somehow all this activity gave him hope that maybe they really would win.

Spike had worked his way down to Xander’s ass by know, and he was busily kneading the big muscles, humming softly to himself as he worked. Xander reminded himself to ask Spike later where he’d learned to be such a talented masseur.

“I like to watch you work,” Spike said, moving to Xander’s thighs. “All those pretty muscles, stretching and straining. And when you concentrate, the tip of your tongue sticks out, just a bit. Ought to give you construction projects more often.”

“Build you a castle,” Xander mumbled. “Gothic. When this is over.”

“Yeah? I’d fancy a tower. Perhaps some gargoyles. A few flying buttresses.” He patted Xander’s butt.

“Mmm. Moat. Dungeon.”

“And we can hoist up the drawbridge when we want the world to leave us be. Okay, love. Over.”

Xander didn’t resist as Spike flipped him like a pancake and dug his thumbs into the soles of Xander’s feet. Xander moaned loudly. That felt too good to be legal.

“Pet?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re doing plenty for the cause now, you know. Always have. You could sit this one out.”

Xander’s eyelid flipped open. “What?”

Spike stared firmly at Xander’s feet. “You could have a holiday at the Slayers’ lair, or—“

“Spike. I’m not going anywhere.”

Now Spike did meet his gaze, and his face looked stricken. “It won’t turn out pretty, love. I saw, yeah? Saw what these wankers can do.”

“I’m not going to run away like a fucking coward!”

“You’re no coward, Xan. Never have been that, not ever. But I couldn’t…if you died…I….”

Xander softened his voice. “I’m gonna die, Spike. Sooner or later. I’d prefer later, but,” he shrugged, “I’m not going to spend the time I do have trying to run away from death. I can’t do that.”

“Could turn you,” Spike whispered, and looked away.

Xander gently removed his feet from Spike’s grip, sat up, and scooted down the bed until he was very close to Spike. He cupped Spike’s cheek in one hand. “I don’t want to be a vamp, sweetheart.”

Spike shut his eyes. “Red could stick on your soul.”

“I’m sure she could. But…look. The souled undead thing—it works for you. But can you really picture me as a vampire?”

Without opening his eyes, Spike shook his head, just slightly.

“Besides, would it even work, with the whole werewolf thing I’ve got going on? Maybe you’d try, and I’d just end up really most sincerely dead.”

Spike swallowed, and Xander went on, “I came to grips with my mortality a long time ago, Spike. Had to, growing up in Sunnyhell. It’s okay. Remember what Buffy said, that time after she died? I think—I really think there’s a better place we go to.”

“Me?”

“You especially. Heaven needs a few Big Bads. Somebody’s gotta teach the angels how to play ‘Anarchy in the UK’ on a harp.”

Spike smiled then. It was a small smile, and accompanied by a sigh, but a smile nonetheless. “All right,” he said, and pushed on Xander’s chest until Xander fell back again. “Not finished with you yet, am I?”

Xander lay back and enjoyed the rest of the massage, which was pretty close to heaven on earth. By the time every bit of him was thoroughly rubbed and his muscles felt loose as his Aunt Dorcas’s muumuus, he discovered that he did have a bit of energy left in reserve. Not a lot, but enough to hold his bent legs up and wide, and to gasp and wiggle a little as Spike teased his pucker with oiled fingers, and to shiver when Spike blew lightly onto his balls and suddenly wide-awake cock.

He watched Spike as the vampire concentrated on his task. Spike’s brows were creased in a tiny frown, his long eyelashes lowered, his clever fingers busy. Xander liked to watch him work, too.

Spike took his time, stretching and oiling Xander until Xander was whimpering in need and maybe one step from begging. But Spike took pity on him this time, and smiled that sexy, tongue-curled-behind-the-teeth smile, then repositioned himself and, in one long, smooth motion, sank his cock deeply inside.

He was so beautiful. His arms and chest were corded in muscles, taut now from the way he was propping himself up over Xander. His pale skin gleamed in the room’s dim light as if he was some celestial body, a distant moon, perhaps. His eyes glimmered with ice-blue fire and one plump lower lip was caught between his even teeth. He had little crinkle lines at the corners of his eyes, and Xander was suddenly pleased that he hadn’t been turned a little younger, that he’d had the chance to grow into the face he had now before it was frozen forever.

Xander’s cock throbbed against his belly, untouched and leaking precome. He didn’t care. Not when the movement of Spike’s hips was sending slow drags of fire throughout his insides. And then Spike’s face shifted, bones and skin shaping into something that once brought terror, but now only love and bright need. Spike tilted his head a little and quirked his lip, allowing a flash of fangs to show. “Pet?” he asked.

As an answer, Xander bent his neck. The pupils in Spike’s eyes widened so much the yellow was hardly visible and his breath hitched in his throat. Knowing he could cause that reaction in this gorgeous creature was almost enough to make Xander lose it, but then Spike lowered his head and bit, right in his favorite spot, and Xander did lose it, wrapping his legs around Spike and squeezing his ass, howling as he came, as he came apart, and then quieting as his parts flowed slowly back together.

 

Xander tried to brace himself for the attack, but it wasn’t enough, and 100 pounds or so of flying Slayer nearly knocked him off his feet. He couldn’t breathe for a moment either, but then she released her hold on him, stepped back a little, and looked him over. “Shapeshifting agrees with you, Xan,” she said with a smile.

“And parenthood agrees with you.”

She looked down at her stomach, which looked as tiny as ever, and frowned. “Yeah, if I could just lose the last five pounds of baby weight.”

“C’mon, Buff, You look great.”

She smiled again and then turned to Spike, who was hovering a few feet away. There was a moment of awkwardness, and then they embraced, too. “My boy’s right,” Spike said when they pulled apart. “Motherhood becomes you.”

“Are you taking good care of Xander, Spike?”

Spike grinned wickedly. “Took very good care of him only a few hours ago. We were—“

“Spike!” Xander felt his face go purple with embarrassment.

But Buffy laughed and patted Spike’s arm before she walked a little farther to where Angel stood, nearly shrouded in a shadow. Kyna was there too, arms folded on her chest, glowering, and Xander had a moment to wonder if something unpleasant was going to happen. Buffy stood and took in the way Kyna had placed herself between Angel and Buffy, and the way Angel was making an especially tortured face, and the way his hand had snuck out—seemingly without him noticing—to almost touch Kyna’s shoulder. And Buffy’s face split into an enormous grin.

“Hi, Angel,” she said, not moving close enough to hug. “Kyna.”

Kyna nodded at her and Angel visibly relaxed. “Hi, Buff. Uh, how was the flight?”

“Long. Crowded. Bumpy.” She turned around then so that only Spike and Xander could see her, and she winked at them. Spike slung an arm around Xander and they chortled, causing Angel to wrinkle his forehead in puzzlement.

With all that drama past, Xander looked out across the lobby and saw a hundred pairs of eyes watching with surprise. “Ladies, this is Spike and Angel and Xander,” Buffy said loudly, pointing at each of them in turn. “My friends. I know you’re not exactly used to working on the same side as vampires and werewolves, but they’re heroes, all three of them. Got it?”

A hundred heads nodded, some grudgingly, maybe, but it was enough to satisfy Buffy. And then the crowd tensed as a figure in jeans and a blue and white t-shirt appeared on the mezzanine and peered down at them.

Spike stepped forward a little. “That git up there is Lindsey McDonald. He’s on our side as well, more or less.” Lindsey tipped an imaginary hat at the collected Slayers.

Then Kyna gave Buffy a small, questioning look. Buffy said, “They’re all yours.”

“Right, then!” Kyna nearly shouted, turning to face the crowd. “The carton on the desk over there has bits of paper. Each of you take one. The number on it is the number of your room. There are clean sheets and towels in each room. Mind you, this may be a hotel, but there are no maids. You’re responsible for tidying after yourselves. We can meet down here in an hour and I shall give you a tour of the training room and kitchen. I shall need volunteers for cooking and washing up. A schedule shall be posted in the training room so you don’t all try to use it at once. If you have any questions, let one of us know. If anything breaks, tell Xander. He’s in room 423. Erm, knock first.” A wave of giggles followed the last comment and Xander felt himself blush again.

“We’ll serve supper at six tonight in there.” She pointed at the door leading to the hotel’s dining room. It had sat empty and unused for decades, but now they’d cleaned it out and furnished it with enough tables and chairs to seat a crowd. “After supper we’ll have a debriefing so you can be clear about our situation.”

She really did make a good general, Xander thought. Angel was looking at her with a combination of awe and a little fear.

“Any questions?”

From the back of the room, a Spanish-accented voice piped up, “When do we get to go to Disneyland?”

There was more laughter until Angel moved closer to the crowd and glared at them. “This isn’t a vacation. Wolfram and Hart are no Mickey Mouse. This is real, and some of us, maybe all of us are gonna get killed.”

“Way to go with the pep talk,” Buffy muttered. More loudly, she said, “Angel’s right—we have to take this situation seriously. But I promise you, when we win this thing I’ll take you all to Disneyland, or Rodeo Drive, or Venice Beach, or whatever part of LA will make you feel like a tourist. But first we gotta beat the bastards. Got it?”

The Slayers cheered, then, and Xander and Spike watched as they grabbed room assignments and the dispersed, dragging their luggage upstairs, chatting and swapping rooms as they went.

“This’ll be a bloody endless hen night,” Spike mumbled.

 

Willow and Giles arrived the next afternoon, along with a dozen members of Willow’s coven. Lindsey had seemed a little at loose ends, but when Giles arrived they found each other right away and wandered off together like old friends. Strange.

But there were more surprises after that. A group of about twenty fairly human-looking demons with sort of grayish skin showed up. Listers, Spike said. Apparently Angel had done them a good turn once and they were there to repay him. Extra help was appreciated, but if these guys knew something was brewing, that had to mean Wolfram and Hart did, too. Well, it’s not like they thought they could operate in secret for long anyway.

Later that same day there was another knock at the door. Xander happened to be nearest; he’d been filling a big chunk that had been taken out of a wall when one of the witches’ practice spells went off-course. When he opened the door, he was flabbergasted to find Oz grinning at him. An assortment of about half a dozen men and women stood with him, all looking pretty scruffy. Then Xander got a whiff of them. Ah. Oz’s pack.

“Hey,” Oz said. “Can we play?”

The place got so full that most people were sharing rooms. Xander was kept in constant motion, unplugging toilets and changing lightbulbs and removing hatchets from the woodwork. He didn’t mind that, not really. But the chaos, the everpresent activity, were wearing, as was the generally high level of youthful estrogen in the house. He’d found that disconcerting back in Sunnydale when it had only been a handful of girls. But now there were much more, and, of course, his interests were more in the testosterone direction nowadays anyway, so it was more than a bit much.

It was worse for Spike, though. Just one Slayer around might be interesting, exciting even. A hundred, though, clearly kept his nerves jangling and his teeth on edge.

As much as possible, Spike and Xander retreated to the relative sanctuary of their suite. Xander would turn off his phone and hang a hand-lettered sign on the door: _If it’s not burning, flooding, or falling down, it can wait. Go away._ After a few snarls from Spike in gameface and Xander sporting extra hair and big teeth, their guests—well, their army, Xander supposed—usually listened.

Xander and Spike luxuriated in time together, then. There was sex, of course. But also sleep, with them wrapped around each other in their bed and Spike suckling at Xander’s neck. There was sitting on the loveseat and watching tv or bad movies, or playing Wii. And sometimes there was just plain old cuddling, with one’s head on the other’s lap, fingers carding through hair, a little friendly teasing passing back and forth.

“This is nice,” Xander said drowsily one evening. The tv was on—some sort of awful talent contest—but they weren’t watching it. They’d had a long, slow tumble in the bed, and then a hot shower, and they were both still naked. Spike was lazily playing with the dark line of hair beneath Xander’s navel, combing and tickling it with his fingers.

Spike chuckled. “Did you know Rupert and the cowboy are sharing a room?”

Xander sat up, shocked. “They are not!”

“Are. At the end of the corridor on the second floor. Saw them ducking out of it this afternoon when I was bringing those books to Red. Had a bit of a look about—spare spectacles and a Longhorns belt buckle piled together on the chest of drawers. Two guitars up against the wall.”

Xander gaped. “But…but…Giles I kinda knew about, but Lindsey claimed to be straight.”

“So did you, once.”

“Good point. But I cannot picture those two together.”

Spike shrugged. “War makes for strange bedfellows, pet.”

“Yeah, but that’s _really_ strange, Spike. And I’ve seen a lot of weird things in my life.”

Spike looked pensive. “Which of them tops, I wonder? Rupert, I expect, because—“

“Argh! No more! Bad mental image! Now my brain needs bleaching like your head.”

His vampire smirked. “I’ll have to find some image to replace it, then.” And, as Xander watched, Spike grasped his own cock and began leisurely stroking it.

 

“Okay, everyone. Listen up!” The chatting died down and everyone trained their gazes on Angel. He was in charge at the moment. Fair enough—this started as his fight.

“We have a lot of weapons and you’ve all been training, and we could probably win a battle. But that’s not enough. This time, we need to win the war.”

Spike rolled his eyes, but he was listening, Xander could tell, and Angel’s words were having the same effect on him as everyone else—making his muscles taut with tension, making his face set with resolve.

“Let me tell you some stuff about our enemy.”

Xander’s mind started to wander as Angel recited a lot of information that was already old news to Xander. The Slayers were listening carefully, though, and the witches and wolves and demons, and the rest of the circus. Angel paced a little in front of the reception desk as he spoke, with the old Sunnydale gang and Kyna flanking him. The rest of the army packed the lobby, with an overflow crowd looking down from the mezzanine. Lindsey was near the front, very close to Giles, actually. Danny Vega was nearby. He’d arrived on a red-eye that morning and had very wisely done no more than smile and wave at Xander from a distance. Spike sometimes still growled when he caught sight of him.

Xander was a little awed that they’d been able to muster this much help. Even if they lost, well, they’d give Wolfram and Hart a hell of a fight.

Xander’s attention drifted back to Angel. “So even if we wipe their Dallas office, or New York, or Rome, they’ll just come back. Like cockroaches. So, um, Willow’s gonna tell you some more.”

Willow smiled and took Angel’s place. She looked only a tiny bit nervous. Xander remembered when she’d practically keel over if she had to talk to more than two people at once.

“Wolfram and Hart have existed here, I mean on earth here, for maybe thousands of years,” she said. “But this isn’t really their home. Their center, their core, is on another plane of existence, sort of a…a parallel universe. To destroy them for good, we have to get to them there.

“Now, all the really icky stuff they do here, the black magics and all, it’s powered back on that other plane. Think of that plane as a huge battery. They’re connected by a kind of mystical electrical cord. And most of the time, that energy flows one way, from there to here.”

That made sense to Xander. Willow would have made a good teacher, he thought.

“What we need to do is send a really huge burst of energy back in the other direction, a big old power surge. That’ll burn out the battery and _poof_, no more evil demon lawyer guys. The coven, with Mr. Vega’s help, we can summon that much power, at least for a short time. The tricky part’s gonna be getting access to the cord.”

She paused, then, and looked at Angel, who nodded at her. “Okay. Here’s how we’re gonna do that. You guys are gonna fight them. You’re gonna really give ‘em all you got, make ‘em mad, scare ‘em even. Angel says they’ll probably respond at first with regular fighting…well, regular demony fighting, like claws and knives and things. But when that doesn’t work, we’re hoping they’ll get panicky and decide to zap you. They’ll sort of flip the switch on that cord, and that’ll be our chance, it’ll open the connection. If we time it just right and we gather enough power and aim it and…uh…a lot of other things go just right, instead of them blasting us, we’ll be blasting them.”

The room was silent as everyone absorbed this for a few moments. Finally, a Slayer with curly brown hair and a Hello Kitty t-shirt asked, “What if it doesn’t work?”

It was Buffy who answered. “Then we die.”

More silence greeted that statement. Oz said then, not very loudly, but loudly enough, “Perhaps today is a good day to die.”

Xander’s lip twitched, then he sniggered, and then Spike was practically holding him upright as he laughed and almost everyone joined in. Everyone except Angel, who just looked bewildered.

Apparently he never watched Star Trek.

 

They actually weren’t planning to die that very day. Some scheme had been cooked up to lure Wolfram and Hart into a fight in two days. Xander hadn’t bothered to be part of the planning. There were plenty of wiser heads for that. He’d just point his fangs wherever he was told, thank you very much.

After the speech-making, people dispersed slowly. Xander had set up a giant tv in the dining room and some folks went to watch that, while another contingent wandered off to the kitchen, saying something about chocolate chip cookies. Others meandered upstairs, some in pairs. A couple of the weres left, heading for Griffith Park, he thought, or maybe up to the LA National Forest.

Soon all that remained in the lobby were Xander and Spike, Angel and Kyna, Buffy and Willow and Giles. Xander thought about asking Giles where Lindsey’d gone to but swallowed the urge. Besides, Angel had that constipated look on his face that meant he had something to say and was having trouble getting it out.

“Um, Willow?” he finally managed.

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering if, uh, if you could maybe do me a favor.” He scratched nervously at the back of his neck.

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

Angel looked at Kyna, who looked sternly back at him, and then he shot a glance at Buffy out of the corner of his eye. “Could, um, could you attach my soul to me? Permanently?” He hunched a little as if expecting a blow.

“Permanently? You mean like without the curse so there’d be no happiness clause and—Oh.” Willow looked back and forth between Angel and Kyna. “No happiness clause. Right.”

Buffy had a great big cat ate the canary smile plastered on her face.

“Yeah, sure, I can do that,” Willow said. “Um, like now?”

Kyna twined Angel’s arm in hers. “If possible,” she said.

“Okay. I think…yeah, I’ve got what I need. But you know what? It’s better if we not do it here. It’s kinda strange magics, really, and it might get some of the natives a little restless.”

“I know a spot,” Spike said. “Big empty building, about two miles from here. Used to be a GM dealership, but now it’s all boarded up.”

“Perfect. Will you guys come along? I could use the help.”

It took Willow about half an hour to gather the things she needed. Somebody told Oz and Vega and Lindsey where they were going. Then the seven of them piled into the van with Xander behind the wheel, and Spike directed them to the building.

It didn’t take all that long to do the deed. Everyone but Angel sat in a circle, and then Angel had to strip naked and sit in the middle. He looked distinctly uncomfortable over this, despite the fact that almost all of them had seen him in his birthday suit already. Besides, he really was gorgeous, which Xander pretended not to notice after Spike poked him in the side.

After that, Willow had them join her in some chanting, and they passed around a smelly bundle of herbs, and Willow sprinkled Angel’s head with something that looked like sesame seeds and smelled like dead fish. Finally, Willow waved a metal and glass rod that Xander supposed might be a magic wand. Angel screamed and went rigid, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled over.

It reminded Xander a little too much of the Blight, and Spike looked uncomfortable, too, and Kyna was downright distressed. But then Willow smiled and tapped Angel’s chest, and he blinked his eyes and sat up again. He looked groggy, maybe a little dizzy, but otherwise okay. “Did it work?” he mumbled.

“It’s Superglued on. You can be as happy as you want now.”

Celebratory hugs and handshakes followed, in the middle of which Angel remembered he was naked. He scrambled back into his clothes. “I have some 21-year-old Bushmills back in my office,” Angel said. “Would you all join me for a drink?”

“Where’d you stash that one, Liam?” Spike asked. “Thought I’d found all your hidey-holes.”

Angel smiled smugly. “I’ll never tell.”

They climbed back in the van. During the short drive back, Giles and Spike argued good-naturedly about soccer—well, football—while Kyna and Buffy actually giggled together about Buffy’s boyfriend and Angel just looked a little dazed. Xander was about to interject into Spike’s and Giles’s discussion a comment about the advantages of watching games in which someone occasionally actually scored, when the ground suddenly shook.

_Earthquake_, was Xander’s first thought.

And then he saw the flames shooting in the sky, their source maybe a half mile away. Right about where the Hyperion stood.

 

[Chapter Eleven](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/72436.html)


	11. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 11/12**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 11/12   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

**Tomorrow I'll post the last chapter and the epilogue.**

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
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CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

It was amazing, really, how long a few seconds could be. Because that’s all it took for Xander to drive the last half mile home—maybe 30 seconds. The streets were pretty clear this time of night, which helped. But still, that 30 seconds lasted years. None of them spoke. They were too shocked, and besides, what was there to say?

When Xander finally pulled to a screeching halt in front of the Hyperion, his first thought was that it seemed eerily familiar, like a horrible case of déjà vu. There was no mayor turned giant snake demon this time. But there were the hungry, orange flames, and the thick, black smoke pouring into the night sky. And there were the survivors, staggering away, bloody and shocked.

They rushed out of the van almost before it was fully stopped and ran forward, into the conflagration. A lot of voices were yelling, screaming. One of them might have been Xander’s.

The event was so stunning that it took Xander’s brain a moment to process the details. The damage wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. There was a an enormous hole on the west side of the building, as if a giant had taken a big bite out of it. That’s where the fire was. Every single window looked to have shattered. Overall, though, the structure looked mostly intact. Xander’s heart gave a small leap of hope. Maybe the casualties hadn’t been too terrible.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Willow standing with some other women—part of the coven, he thought—holding hands in a circle and chanting rapidly. He caught a word or two as he ran by—ignipotens, aquator.

He followed the swirl of Spike’s duster in through the front door, and then he was very glad for his wolfish senses, because it was pitch black inside. His one eye immediately began to sting and water. A few people rushed by him toward the exit, coughing.

“Spike!” Xander called.

From the stairway, Spike yelled back, “Stay there, Xan! Smoke’s too thick.”

Xander wanted to argue, but the truth was he could barely breathe as it was. At least Spike could manage without oxygen. Xander looked quickly around the lobby and could just make out a small figure staggering blindly from the dining room. He ran over and grabbed her arm and started to drag her to the door. She was bleeding; he could smell it. She collapsed after a few steps and he threw her over his shoulder and ran.

Outside, he saw Giles and Vega and a few others kneeling over a half dozen people. Two of the people were sitting up, but the others were flat on their backs, unmoving. Xander dumped the girl among them as gently as he could and then dashed back in.

The dining room was on the west side of the hotel and had sustained a lot of damage. He found three more people in there, one unconscious, the others dazed and unable to see well enough to find their way out. He carried the one and made sure the others followed him closely.

When he added these three to Giles’s growing collection of patients, he saw that the witches had been joined by several more of their group. They were still chanting, but the flames had died down considerably and, as he watched, they guttered out.

He started to head back inside, but Giles called him. “Xander! We need to get some of these people to hospital. The car keys?”

“Still in the ignition. Good Samaritan’s closest. Just turn right on Wilshire.”

He didn’t wait for a response, but instead ran again for the door. Spike was just coming out. His eyes were red and his face was almost black with soot except for the parts that were tear-stained. He was carrying someone his arms, wrapped in a blanket. Xander pointed to where Giles was and Spike nodded.

Xander waited by the door for Spike to return. “Are you okay, Spike?” he asked. He suddenly remembered that flammability was an issue for his lover and felt a little weak-kneed, but Spike nodded impatiently. “Right as rain, pet. Looks like Red’s lot have put out the fire now. But part of the structure’s collapsed, and I think people might be trapped inside. Gonna go see.”

“Wait.” Xander put his hand on Spike’s shoulder. “Why see when you can smell?” And then he dropped to the ground and began his change.

He’d changed very quickly in Dallas when he went after Morris. Now he might have been even faster. It hurt like hell and his clothes were goners again, but within moments he was furry and four-legged. His alpha laid his hand on the back of Xander’s neck and together they re-entered the building.

The smoke had dissipated considerably. Xander inhaled deeply and it made him cough only a little. He didn’t catch the scents of anyone else currently in the lobby. They trotted over to the dining room, but it was empty. The kitchen was, too, and the part of Xander’s brain that could still think about construction wondered whether anyone had thought to turn off the gas. He had no way to express that thought to Spike, though, so he just hoped for the best.

Satisfied that the ground floor was clear, they opened the door to the basement. Xander didn’t know what anyone would have been doing there to begin with, but they had to check. They could see from the top of the stairs that there hadn’t been much damage down there. Mostly just some toppled piles of junk, likely from the force of the blast. “Oi!” Spike called. “Anybody there?”

There was no answer. Xander couldn’t smell anyone either, so he barked sharply and trotted for the stairs.

On the second floor they found a man, one of Oz’s wolves, out cold and trapped under a collapsed wall. Spike dug him out—it was impossible for Xander to help much with his paws—and they brought him outside. Most of the badly wounded were gone, and Giles and Vega and the witches were bandaging and tending to the rest. Angel and Buffy and Kyna were searching the grounds, it looked like, probably trying to make sure there was no additional danger. Buffy caught sight of Xander and gaped a little. She hadn’t seen him wolfish before. But then she gave a small wave and went back to searching near some bushes.

The second floor was clear. So was the third. Xander was feeling almost relieved. But then on the fourth floor he caught two scents. One of them was familiar. He ran down the hallway, Spike at his heels. They both resolutely ignored the devastation that used to be their suite.

Towards the end of the hallway, the fifth floor had collapsed onto the fourth. The corridor ended in an enormous pile of rubble—charred boards, chunks of plaster and drywall, the mangled remains of furniture, melted wiring, shards of glass. Xander climbed onto the edge of it, ignoring the way the sharp edges of things cut into the pads of his paws. As Spike waited anxiously, Xander nosed around. Finally, success. He yipped. Spike clambered up and began throwing debris out of the way.

And then he stopped.

Xander crawled carefully back up and looked down into the hole Spike had made. A young woman was there. One of the Slayers, Xander remembered. She had waist-length black hair and she was from Guatemala. Xander had fixed the shower head in her room a few days earlier and they’d chatted a little. She had a tiny voice and an infectious smile. Now, though, Xander’s nose and ears confirmed what her twisted limbs and puddled blood suggested: it was too late to save her.

Tight-faced, Spike lifted her body. He started carrying her back down the hallway, but Xander barked and pointed his muzzle back at the destruction.

“More, then, pet?” Spike’s voice was raspy from the smoke.

Xander wagged his tail once and pawed at a spot a few feet from where the dead girl had been.

“Right,” Spike said. He set the Slayer down on the floor almost tenderly, and she lay there like a broken doll. Then Spike came over and again began removing the wreckage from the spot Xander had indicated.

It took longer this time, and Spike swore loudly when a section of piled fragments threatened to collapse. Xander hovered nearby, feeling helpless. You never really appreciated opposable thumbs until you didn’t have them. Then Spike looked into the gap he’d cleared and swore again, but quietly this time. Xander arched his neck and tried to see, but couldn’t quite make anything out.

“Get back, Xan. Need to move this bloody thing.” Xander backed up a few steps and watched as Spike heaved an enormous beam out of the pile, then, with a grunt, Spike tossed the blackened wood aside. Spike hopped down into the cavity he’d made. “Love? Can you come lend a, erm, a foot?”

So Xander scrambled over to him. He had a pretty good idea what he’d see this time. Sure enough, there was a man lying prone. Xander could see the burns across the man’s mangled legs from where the beam had landed, pinning him in place. The smell of charred flesh was thick in Xander’s nostrils; he could almost taste it. A bright pool of blood had spread beneath the man, soaking into the carpet. The man’s arms were outstretched and his face was pressed into the floor, but Xander didn’t have to see it to recognize him. Aside from the man’s familiar odor, there was the fact that Xander had recently spent many hours staring at the back of that head as he sat in the cargo area of the van, big clumps of time as they drove to Dallas and back.

Lindsey was still breathing. Wheezing, weak breathing, but his lungs pushed air in and out and his heartbeat was slow but steady.

“Xan, I’m going to lift him up. Think you can grab his trousers in your teeth and help pull him out?”

Xander yipped an affirmative and crouched at the edge of the hole. As soon as Spike lifted Lindsey’s floppy body up, Xander locked his jaws into the waist of Lindsey’s jeans and slowly dragged him over the edge. Spike jumped nimbly out, scooped Lindsey into his arms, and slid and scooted his way back to the undamaged part of the corridor.

Xander followed Spike past the dead girl. “I’ll send someone for her,” Spike said quietly.

Giles was picking slivers of glass out of the bare foot of a Slayer when Spike set Lindsey down beside him. When Giles saw the injured man he paled and his breath caught. “Good Lord,” he whispered.

“Cowboy’s still alive. Best get him to hospital fast, though.”

Giles nodded dumbly and then gingerly prodded at Lindsey, trying to assess the extent of his injuries. “Help me carry him, please,” he said to Spike. Whoever had taken the carload of casualties off to Good Samaritan had returned, and the van was pulled up to the curb again, engine still running. As Spike placed Lindsey in the back, Giles stood nearby, looking back and forth between Lindsey and the remaining injured people on the sidewalk, clearly torn.

Just then Buffy appeared, though, black with soot, her clothing torn and her hair a mess. “I’ll take him, Giles,” she said, setting a small hand on Giles’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure they take good care of him.”

 

It was nearly an hour later when the police and fire trucks showed up. Xander was bipedal again, Spike’s duster wrapped around his nudity as if he were some sort of goth flasher. A couple of cops gave them a long explanation for their late arrival, something to do with a communications system that had mysteriously crashed. Xander supposed it was more of Wolfram and Hart’s bullshit, but it had actually worked out for the better. Vampires and werewolves and Slayers made a better rescue crew anyway, and it would have been hard to explain the astonishing healing powers and durability of the survivors. Not to mention the Listers’ decidedly not-human appearance.

The cops took reports and the firemen said the structure was uninhabitable, but probably salvageable. “Ya gotta really watch for gas leaks in these old heaps,” one of the firemen said to Angel, and Angel nodded impatiently.

An hour or so before dawn they were clustered outside the taped-off remains, taking stock. Everybody said there’d been no warning, just a sudden explosion. But the witches had sensed magics, and Xander confirmed that he’d caught whiffs of the tickly scent as he was searching with Spike. “I’m so sorry, Angel,” Willow sniffed. “My wards weren’t strong enough.”

But Angel shook his head. “I had wards up, too. I think if it wasn’t for yours, there’d be nothing left but a big hole in the ground.”

“Sunnydale redux,” Xander muttered.

Willow sniffed again and looked slightly comforted as Buffy patted her shoulder.

It had been a devastating blow. Four people had died—three Slayers and a Lister demon. A half dozen others were seriously injured, including Lindsey, who Giles tersely informed them was critical but stable. “No worries, Rupert. That tosser’s as hard to get rid of as I am,” Spike said, and Giles gave him a small smile. Most of the rest of them had at least minor damage, cuts and small burns and bruises and even a broken bone or two. But almost all of them would heal very quickly.

All in all, it was bad, but the disaster could have been much worse.

It was getting uncomfortably close to sunrise. Angel said he’d stay at the Hyperion to watch over their arsenal. Kyna insisted on staying with him. Giles and Angel and Spike made some phone calls and they were able to get blocks of rooms in a couple of hotels a few miles away. Xander volunteered to help ferry people over in his van—Oz had a van, too, but it was still going to take several trips—but Spike and Giles both vetoed that idea. “You’re knackered, pet,” Spike said. “And you’re due for a good feed as well. Come rest with me.”

It was awfully damn tempting, and when Vega stepped forward and said, “I’ll drive,” Xander tossed him the keys. Spike managed to give Vega a small nod of thanks.

“I think…I shall go to the hospital,” Giles said. “If one of you would drop me there?”

Angel dug in his pocket and handed over the keys to the Viper. “Here. Drive yourself.”

“Thank you, Angel.”

Angel added, “You have a room at the Holiday Inn, okay? Make sure you get some sleep. I think you’re gonna need it.”

Giles nodded. But before he walked away, Vega put his hand up.

“Uh, before you go, I think you oughtta know something about Lindsey.”

They all tensed. Xander saw Angel’s jaw set and his hands clench into fists. Christ, had Lindsey double-crossed them?

Vega said, “When the explosion went off, Lindsey was in the lobby with me. We were talking about that demon spell he knows, the one that knocks ‘em out, wondering how many demons he could zap at once, if it came to it. When the blast hit, he ran right for the dining room and started helping folks toward the door. When most of them were out he ran upstairs. I was outside when I saw him coming out, carrying one of those girls over his shoulder. He sort of dropped her and then turned around and went right back in. I saw him bring at least four or five people out of that inferno, man.”

The rest of them were dumbstruck.

Vega went on, “That last time, I tried to tell him not to go back. You could see parts of the building crashing down. He just shook me off and charged back inside.”

“True,” Oz added. “I saw.”

“The cowboy was a sodding hero?” Spike said.

All Angel said was, “Huh.”

 

“This isn’t the Holiday Inn, Spike.”

“No shit, love.”

Spike pulled the GTO to a halt in front of the pink monstrosity. A young man in a uniform was waiting there and he immediately dashed forward. “Can I take your luggage, sirs?” he asked. He didn’t even bat an eye at Xander’s unusual outfit, or at the thick layer of ashes and dirt that blanketed Spike.

“No luggage.” Spike glanced up at the sky, which had lightened to a rich violet, then threw the keys to the kid.

Xander docilely followed Spike inside to the lobby. It was done in pink and green, with an enormous chandelier in the middle that looked like an upside down umbrella. A smiling black-haired woman in a suit was waiting for them. “Mister Harris?” she said, her eyes flicking from one to the other.

“That’s us.”

“Everything’s all ready, sir. Would you like someone to show you the way?”

“Ta, love, but no. Know how to get there.”

She smiled some more and handed Spike a pair of key cards. “Enjoy your stay!” she said.

Spike walked briskly through the lobby, out a door, past a swimming pool, and down a leafy path. “What’d you do?” Xander asked.

“You told me once you fancied posh hotels. I reckoned we could do better than the bloody Holiday Inn, this time.” He brought them to a halt in front of a small, pink building and unlocked the door. Then he ushered Xander inside.

As Spike shut the door behind him, Xander slowly spun, taking in the ornately furnished room. Then he caught scent of food, and focused on a small table off to one side. It was covered in a crisp white cloth, but little of the cloth was visible because the tabletop was covered in six or seven plates, each with a metal lid.

“How’d you know about this place, Spike?”

“Stayed here once with Dru, back in the 30’s. Greta Garbo was here and John Barrymore. Johnny Weissmuller doing laps in the pool.”

Sometimes Xander forgot how _old_ Spike was, how many things Xander had learned as history but Spike had seen first-hand. But he was too tired and hungry to muse on this too long today. He smiled at his vampire. “This is really nice, baby. Thank you.”

And Spike smiled back, the soft, almost-shy look he got when he knew he’d especially pleased Xander, and when he let all his masks fall away. Then his face sharpened up again, and he was the Big Bad once more. “Go fill that bottomless pit you call a stomach before the food gets cold. This feast cost the pouf a pretty penny.”

“Food, too. You work fast. But no flowers this time?”

Spike mock-growled at him. “Eat!” he ordered.

So Xander shrugged off the duster and set it on a cream-colored armchair. He sat at the table, nude, and ate everything there: a steak, a burger and fries, some messy barbecued ribs, a half a roast chicken. Spike mostly watched, now and then stealing a bite of this or that. When all the food was gone and Xander felt deliciously full, he slowly sucked each of his own fingers clean, enjoying the slightly dazed look on Spike’s face when he was done.

Xander stood and stretched. “Shower?” he said and walked off to the bathroom, deliberately wiggling his hips as he did.

The bathroom was all pink marble and green granite. When Spike stripped quickly and joined him, Xander couldn’t help but giggle. “Laughter isn’t the reaction I normally get, pet,” Spike said.

“Sorry. It’s just…you look kinda funny.”

“Oi!”

Spike reached over to slap at Xander’s ass, but Xander caught his hand and kissed it instead. His hand was charcoal-colored. Both of them were. So were his face and hair. It made an interesting contrast with the milk-white where his skin had been covered by clothing, and that’s what had amused Xander.

The shower was pretty crowded, actually, so they were quick about it, only a little extra groping, and then they toweled off and stumbled into bed. The sheets felt wonderful, Xander thought, settling his hand into the little hollow beside Spike’s hipbone. Ought to get some for the—oh. They wouldn’t be sleeping at the Hyperion any time soon.

He sighed.

“All right, pet?” Spike’s mouth was against Xander’s neck, his lips almost brushing Xander’s skin.

“Yeah. I was just thinking about the people who died today. And our home, Spike!”

“You’ll mend it, Xan. I’ll get to spend weeks and weeks watching you work with your shirt off. It’ll be lovely.”

“We almost lost it, though.”

Spike raised his head and looked into Xander’s eye. “Love, it wouldn’t matter. Hotel, crypt, the bloody Taj Mahal. As long as you’re there, it’s my home.”

 

They slept almost until sunset, curled into one another, dead to the world. When they finally woke they sucked each others’ cocks, slowly, lazily, until Xander’s iPhone—which he’d remembered to save from the ruins of his clothes—began singing about werewolves. They groaned in unison but then disengaged, and Xander answered.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Xan. Did I catch you at a bad time?” Buffy said with faux innocence.

“As a matter of fact, yes. We were right in the middle of a round of hot man-on-man—uh, vamp-on-were action.” He’d given up on trying to shock her with reports on his sex life. After all, she’d slept with Spike, too.

“Seriously? ‘Cause I know how you two are, but after last night….”

“Shifting makes me incredibly horny, if you must know. Probably something hormonal. It’s like being sixteen again, only now Spike’s here, and when he was there when I was sixteen I was not fully appreciative.”

“Bloody right,” Spike muttered.

“Whatever,” Buffy said. “Can you finish appreciating him? We’re meeting at the dealership in an hour.”

“Okay, fine.”

They said their goodbyes. Xander and Spike hurried things along, licking and sucking and groping and writhing, until each of them had spent down the other’s throat, and they were breathless and sticky with sweat.

Another quick shower, then, and Xander stood in the center of the bedroom, suddenly aware of a complication. “Uh, Spike? I’m kinda out of clothes here, and yours—“

“Look in the cupboard, pet.”

Xander did, and discovered two pairs of jeans, one blue and one black, and a dark green silky shirt. A pair of black tennis shoes in his size was there, too. At Spike’s direction he also investigated the dresser and unearthed a white tee and a black one and a pair of socks. “We’re both going commando today?”

Spike sidled up behind him and caressed Xander’s flanks. “I like it when you go commando,” he purred.

For a moment, Xander seriously considered telling the rest of them to go to hell—literally, maybe—and just tumbling back into that wonderful bed. But then he thought of Lindsey, clinging to life in the hospital, and the face of the dead Slayer he and Spike had found, and the way his beloved vampire had looked after he’d spent one night with Wolfram and Hart. “C’mon, sweetheart. They’ll be waiting.”

Spike sighed, but he got dressed, too. There were a few pints of blood in the small fridge, and a couple of sandwiches, so they ate quickly and then headed out. Somebody fetched the car for them. They drove through the darkening evening, and Xander gazed with wonder at the pretty people they passed. None of them worried about apocalypses. Theirs was an existence entirely separate from Xander’s and his friends’.

The crowd waiting at the dealership was a select one: Angel, Kyna, Buffy, Willow, Giles, Oz, Vega. They all looked keyed up, anxious. “Where’s everyone else?” Xander asked.

“Shopping, mostly,” Buffy answered. “Everyone’s clothing was pretty gross.” She herself was dressed in a pair of new jeans and a plain green t-shirt that still showed the seams from when it was packaged. Her hair was back in a ponytail that reminded him of nights spent on patrol.

A few minutes were spent milling around, everybody catching up on what had happened last night. Xander took the opportunity to draw Vega aside. “Go home,” Xander told him. “What you saw last night—that’s just the opening act.”

Vega smiled easily at him. “I wouldn’t want to miss the main event.”

Xander shook his head. “It’s gonna get really ugly. This isn’t remotely your fight and anything you think you still owe me and Spike…we’re even, okay?”

Vega started to put a hand on Xander’s shoulder but caught sight of Spike out of the corner of his eyes and obviously thought better of it. “Look, man. I know about Wolfram and Hart, and what they’re capable of. And this isn’t about any debts, okay? It’s just…I’m a guy with a little talent, and I run a bookstore. How often do I get a chance to be a genuine hero?”

“Being a hero’s not so great when you’re dead.”

“It’s okay. Look, I have no family except for my Mom, and I’ve got insurance. She’ll be taken care of. I want to do this, Xander.” He was still smiling, but there was s stubborn set to his shoulders.

Xander sighed. “You’re amazing.”

Vega grinned at him. “And you’ll never know just _how_ amazing I am.” He walked toward the middle of the room, then, where everyone else was gathering. Xander followed.

Xander laid a hand on Giles’s back for a moment. “How are the people in the hospital?”

“Mending,” said Giles. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. “Most of them should be fine in time.”

Spike asked, “Lawyer?”

“Stable. He’s in a medically induced coma. He may have sustained some brain damage from anoxia. The doctors aren’t certain yet. And his legs are…quite badly injured. Between the burns and the fractures, he may lose them.” Giles’s voice was steady, almost clinical, as if he were talking about a car that needed repairs. But Xander recognized the little twitch near the one corner of his mouth and wasn’t surprised in the least when Giles took off his glasses and began to clean them. “Yes, well, shall we get down to business?”

Angel cleared his throat. “We can’t afford to sit around waiting for those bastards to strike again. We got lucky last night. If Willow’s wards hadn’t helped, or if more people had been in the parts of the building that were destroyed…well, we can’t count on good luck next time.”

“So what do you suggest?” Buffy asked.

“We need to find a way to lure them to us. To our turf, preferably, but in any case sometime and someplace where we’re ready for them.”

“How will we do that, Peaches? Hang out a sign: _Evil lawyer gits welcome_?”

Angel shot Spike a dirty look he’d been practicing giving him for 130 years.

“We could go to their offices, in Dallas maybe, and start something there,” Xander offered.

Kyna shook her head. “Too cumbersome to move our whole army.”

“And confronting them on their own ground’s not such a great idea, Xan,” added Willow. “They’ll be extra powerful there, and we don’t even know our way around the building.”

Spike said, quietly, “Don’t fancy another holiday there myself.” Xander shuddered.

They were all silent a moment, thinking. Finally, Vega said, “Could we stage something here? Some event that would be irresistible to them?”

Angel cocked his head. “Maybe…maybe an auction. You know, some of the magic crap—sorry, Willow—some of that magic stuff they like so much. Talismans, possessed furniture, things like that.”

Xander mouthed to Spike, “Possessed _furniture_?”

Spike shook his head. “Later, pet,” he whispered.

“But where will we find these items?” Kyna asked.

Angel shrugged. “I can dig up a few. We can lie about the rest. We don’t really need to have everything we advertise.”

Willow said, “But either they’d know it was us, in which case they’d stay away or just trick us back somehow, or they wouldn’t know it was us, in which case they probably wouldn’t bring the big guns. And without the big guns, I don’t know that their power portal will open enough for us to get to it.”

“Besides,” Xander added. “Wouldn’t there be a lot of noncombatants who showed up, too? We don’t really want them getting stuck in the middle.”

“All right. No auction.” Angel frowned.

Willow was tapping her finger against her chin. “Maybe we could try a summoning spell on a couple of their head guys, and probably the rest would follow. They probably haven’t bothered to protect themselves from that, because who wants to summon those people? Most people want them to stay far away.”

Buffy had been pacing the dusty floor, but now she stopped. “How would that work, Will?”

“Well, we’d need something personal to each of the people we wanted to summon. Hair’s good, or blood or fingernails, or sometimes something they keep close to them all the time, like…oh! Like a cell phone.”

“And we’d get these how?” asked Buffy.

“We could send in a small team to steal them,” Vega suggested. “Just a few people who are skilled in that kind of thing.”

Giles shook his head. “The last time there was an attempt to remove an item from their possession it did not go well.”

“True, but what else are we gonna do, Giles?’ Buffy put her hands on her hips. “Angel’s right—we can’t just sit around and wait for them to strike first.”

“No, we can’t, but I believe the level of risk for a covert operation like that is unacceptable, and—“

“Call them.”

Everyone turned and stared at Oz. He’d been standing at the edge of their group, characteristically silent.

Angel said, “What?”

“Call them. You have Lindsey’s old boss’s number, right?” He shrugged. “Set up a showdown.”

 

[Chapter Twelve](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/72561.html)


	12. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
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_**Twice Bitten, Chapter 12/12**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** 12/12   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: **The fic is complete and I'll post daily. Thank you very much to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the stunning banners and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/), who gave me the prompt for _Hard-Bitten_!

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005f77z/)  
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CHAPTER TWELVE

 

It didn’t feel like a showdown. It wasn’t high noon, for one thing. That wouldn’t have been good for the vamps at all. Nobody was wearing cowboy hats or carrying six-shooters, and there was no score by Ennio Morricone.

Actually, it was more like a rumble in a 50’s movie, the kind where the two gangs decide to meet at the schoolyard. Only not so much with the nifty music and chicks in poodle skirts. Instead, Slayers and vampires and Listers were carrying swords and other lethal-looking things. The witches had blades, too, but their magics would be far more dangerous than their knives. Xander and the other weres were unarmed, although that would change when they shifted and brandished pointy teeth and powerful claws.

Even though they were outside in a wide-open space—the derelict remains of a drive-in theater on the outskirts of a desert town—anxiety and tension and eagerness hung over them in an almost palpable layer.

Spike turned his head and grinned at Xander. He was still in his human face, but his expression was so feral, so viscerally sexy, that Xander’s balls tingled and his cock twitched. He wouldn’t have thought his dick would be capable of anything, not after the workout it had had that afternoon.

After their discussion in the dealership the night before, Angel had called Lindsey’s old boss and thrown down the gauntlet. The guy had been a little surprised at such a direct approach, but he’d accepted eagerly, and a time and place had been arranged.

Angel and Kyna and Vega went back to the Hyperion, then, to assemble the weapons and supplies and arrange for renting some busses to drive them all to their rendezvous. Giles went to the hospital. Willow, Buffy, and Oz went back to their hotels. Willow promised to set up a webcam in her room so that anyone who wanted could have a face-to-face chat with absent loved ones. Buffy and Oz had smiled sadly, both undoubtedly thinking of their children whom they might never hold again.

All of Xander’s and Spike’s loved ones were joining them in battle. So the two of them had driven back to their hotel. When Spike opened the door to their little bungalow, though, Xander found himself speechless—a rare condition, to be sure. The whole bedroom was filled with dozens and dozens of bouquets of flowers.

“Spike?” he finally choked out. Had the vampire had a relapse of the csípés spell?

Spike shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I reckon I’ll be dusted tonight anyway, so I might as well make a fool of myself today.”

Xander had laughed and then gathered Spike into his arms, and they’d kissed long and passionately. Their clothes were soon strewn about the room and they didn’t get any sleep at all. Not that they probably would have anyway. All too soon, though, the shadows outside their curtained windows had grown long. They ordered in some food, which Xander resolutely refused to think of as a last meal, and, as soon as it was safe for Spike, left in the GTO. They’d both smelled of rose petals.

It had still been hot when they arrived at the old theater, but the temperature had dropped quickly and now Xander was shivering a little. Spike put his arm around Xander’s waist as if he had body warmth to share. The nearly-full moon was a spotlight over the rutted gravel where they stood, and the tattered shreds of the last remaining screen flapped slightly in a bit of a breeze.

Perhaps a mile away, cars were approaching. The weres heard them first and told the rest, who set their mouths in grim lines. Almost in unison, the weres shifted. Xander didn’t care that he ruined yet another outfit; he probably wouldn’t live long enough for it to matter. After the agonizing twist and stretch of bones, tendons, and skin was over, Xander rose to his feet. He cast a long look at the other wolves, who were standing in a loose group about twenty yards away. He hadn’t really spent time with other weres in this form.

“Can join them if you want,” Spike said quietly.

But Xander stubbornly sat. He was with his pack already. His alpha was at his side; Angel and his new mate were nearby, smelling strongly of one another; and Buffy was next to them. Willow was not too far, either, among the people who made his nose tickle. Giles was with them, and even Danny Vega.

Buffy stared at him again, still amazed at his transformation. Then she smiled. “You make an awesome wolf, Xan.” He snuffled at her and Spike ruffled his fur in agreement. Spike scratched a little at that one spot on Xander’s back that Xander could never reach with paws or teeth. It felt really good.

A half dozen black sedans came into view, crunching slowly over the gravel drive, before halting in a neat line. Men in suits emerged, four to a car. But one of them was clearly their alpha. Xander could tell from the slightly deferential movements the others made near him and from the way they all kept glancing at him as if to check what he was doing. The leader looked younger than Xander had expected, although of course he might have truly been any age at all. He appeared maybe 35, with thick, sandy hair, clear blue eyes, and a movie star smile. He stepped forward confidently, the others trailing slightly in his wake.

“Angel,” he said warmly, holding out his hand. “So nice to finally meet you.”

Angel did not shake, and so the man shrugged and let his arm drop to his side.

“I see you’ve gathered quite a crew,” the man said, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Did you recruit at Forever 21?”

Angel remained silent.

“Well, maybe I ought to give these youngsters some fair warning, huh?” Raising his voice, he went on. “Ladies and, uh…whatever. Last time this vampire tried to fight us, he had a god on his side, and still, every one of his friends died. Except the other vampire, of course. Interesting how they managed to get away scot-free. This time, most of you will die. If you’re unlucky enough to survive, we’ll take you with us, and you can spend the rest of your miserable existence as slaves in a hell dimension. Fun, huh? So now’s your chance. Just scamper back home, have a nice little slumber party even.”

Maybe he expected some response, but all he got was stony stares. Almost everyone there was a veteran of many fights; a little baiting wasn’t going to faze them very much.

The man waited a few moments, then shrugged, “No? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He lowered his voice again and addressed Angel. “You can still save your friends. Join us. Hell, we’ll even let you have that one as a pet.” He pointed at Spike.

“Go to hell, Sloane,” Angel said calmly.

“Oh, I already have. You, too, I understand. Ready for your return engagement?”

“It seems to me, mate, that a bloke wasting this much time on banter is likely trying to delay his inevitable trouncing.” Spike smirked at the man.

“Just wanted to have a little fun,” Sloane said. “But if you’re gonna be a party pooper….” He made a gesture with his hand and then, well, all hell broke loose.

The temperature plummeted a good twenty degrees and clouds suddenly obscured the moon and stars. Strange shapes appeared out of nowhere, twisted creatures with long claws and the smell of rotting carrion. Xander had a split second to see his alpha vamp out, and to notice that his own teeth itched with the yearning to sink into hot, living flesh. And then the enemy was upon them.

Xander had been in battles before, albeit as a human rather than a wolf, and he knew how they went. Your whole focus would narrow to the small space around you, to the things that could kill you or be killed by you, and you would dance with them, fiercely, almost calm as your brain focused solely on the basic components of survival. Sometimes you’d get a momentary flash of awareness of something else: a scream, a spray of blood, a falling body. But mostly your universe was only a few feet in diameter.

The demons tasted awful. But that was okay, because their tough skin gave nicely to his fangs and their thick bones cracked satisfyingly under his jaws. He tried to keep track of Spike, and sometimes his peripheral vision caught a swirl of black or a blaze of white, and he’d know his alpha was near. But with only one eye he had to concentrate on what was most important at the moment, and that was the demons.

He knew he’d been wounded. He had no idea how badly; nothing hurt very much yet, and he certainly didn’t have the time to self-assess. He was still moving pretty well, anyway, so it probably wasn’t anything life-threatening.

Just ahead of him, Angel was grappling with a demon, trying to bring it close enough to bite it, while another clawed at his back. Xander launched himself at the second one. His body weight was enough to knock it to the ground, and then Xander was standing atop its scaly chest, tearing out his throat. He’d have howled in triumph if he had time, but more monsters were swarming everywhere.

A heavy blow hit his left flank and he nearly collapsed. There was sharp pain now, and he twisted around and saw a snarling demon thrusting a heavy spear into his side. He tried to get loose, but the demon only stuck the point farther into Xander’s body. Furious, Xander snapped his blood-flecked muzzle at the protruding wood. Then the demon’s head flew cleanly off its shoulders, a look of complete amazement on its face. Buffy waved her sword at another encroaching enemy, bisecting its body neatly, and then yanked the spear out of Xander’s body. He didn’t have time to thank her before she was whirling away, slashing and parrying, and then he was occupied himself with eviscerating a demon that had tripped over its compatriot’s head.

It seemed to Xander that the battle was slowing a bit and the ranks of the enemy had thinned. He hoped that things had gone according to plan, and the witches had been shielded from the worst of the carnage. If they had, they would be waiting for Wolfram and Hart to react to their weakening state by trying to tap into their mystical power source.

Xander thought he saw Spike fall just over there, a few yards to the right. He ignored a set of claws that raked over his back and squirmed his way between human and inhuman fighters until he saw Spike supine on the ground. One demon straddled his neck while another poked something sharp into Spike’s stomach. Spike howled and thrashed but couldn’t get free.

Seeing his alpha treated like this made Xander lose what little control he still had. He was no longer a human, a young man who once fetched doughnuts and hid his insecurities with wisecracks. He was an animal, a beast with supernatural strength and speed, and he didn’t care about anything in the world except protecting his alpha, his mate.

Xander leapt at the demon that was holding Spike down, latching his teeth onto its throat and breaking its neck with one vicious shake. Its body hadn’t even hit the ground before he was standing on his hind legs. He clawed at the other demon’s chest and delighted in the way it shrieked. Spike used Xander to pull himself upright but he was badly hurt. Xander stayed very close to him. He lost track of all the creatures he killed then; he was a blur of flashing fangs and snapping jaws. Sometimes he was injured too, but that didn’t slow him down.

And then, as if in slow motion, he saw a sharp-tipped wooden pole propelled toward them, aimed directly at Spike’s chest. He was at the wrong angle to push Spike out of the way, and the vampire didn’t see it coming, too caught up in trying to wrestle a nasty-looking dagger away from a demon. Xander didn’t have time to think. He jumped, putting his own body between the spear and his alpha. The chunk of wood slammed into him. It was like being hit by a brick wall and he fell backwards, and then discovered he couldn’t get up again. In fact, even breathing was proving to be too difficult, and he wished that he, like Spike, didn’t have to.

Spike’s face appeared over him. It was so covered in gore his skin was barely visible. “Xander!” Spike yelled. “Oh, no, love, don’t—“

Xander whined a little and even managed to twitch his tail.

Spike screamed and pulled the spear out of Xander and tossed it aside. It didn’t hurt. Well, it did, but the pain was distant, unimportant, like a conversation he wasn’t a part of. He wanted to tell Spike that, but of course he couldn’t.

Spike’s face was twisted in anguish and tears rolled down his face. Don’t cry, Xander thought at him. It’s all right.

And it truly was all right, maybe, because just then there was a huge percussion of air, like happens after an explosion, and an odd humming noise, and the overwhelming, tingling scent of magic. Another boom followed, this one even bigger. And then there was nothing but blackness.

 

“I know blood heals vamps, but what the hell works for werewolves?” Ah, Buffy. She sounded annoyed, like during their junior year of high school when Mr. Warnecke gave them trig homework nobody could possibly solve. Nobody except Willow, of course. She knew all the answers in school. Used to do his homework for him sometimes, when she could tell that his parents’ fighting had been too loud for him to concentrate the night before, or when Tony was being extra trigger-happy with his fists. Oh, but she was such a good friend. Almost all the time, except for when she went all evil and veiny, but she’d come out all right after that, too, because he loved her.

He loved Buffy, too. Not the crush kind of love, like back in high school when he thought the world revolved around her but knew she was way out of his league. And, uh, female, although he was a long way then from admitting that little issue. He loved her like a sister, the slightly annoying kind who occasionally pissed you off but you could always count on to back you up in the end, to try and save you from demons, even.

And he loved…oh, gods, Spike, where was Spike?

Xander slowly peeled his eyelid open, noting dimly that he was seeing colors sharply again, so he must have reverted to human. A ceiling was above him. Ugly thing, all popcorn-textured and dingy, with a bug-specked light fixture smack in the middle. That wasn’t all that interesting to look at, so he tried to sit up. And immediately regretted it, as his entire torso felt like it was being attacked by a horde of miniature monsters with tiny cudgels and knives.

Okay, not so much with the sitting, then. Or with the moving at all.

He was groggily considering his other options when another voice said, “I’m afraid that all we can do is wait for his body to repair itself. It should eventually, so long as the weapon wasn’t silver.”

Not silver, he wanted to tell Giles. Wood. Instant dustville for vamps, but only acute agony for carpenter-slash-werewolves.

“So, what? We just let him lie there?”

“Buffy, Willow’s magics are depleted, and—“

“I know, I know. It’s just…really frustrating.”

Ha. _She _was really frustrated? He couldn’t even move his goddamn head and he needed to know where the hell Spike was. Why didn’t Xander hear his voice, too? He was so aggravated that he made a sort of grunting sound.

That brought Buffy and Giles rushing over, and they peered down at him anxiously. “Xan? You’re awake?”

“Uuuh.” It even hurt when he talked. Buffy and Giles looked relieved, though.

“Xander, is there anything we can do for you? Painkillers don’t seem to work very well on shapeshifters, I’m afraid, and I don’t know—“

“Where?” A whole, actual word. Hooray for him.

“We’re in some fleabag motel off Highway 18. El Rancho Cucaracha, I think. We didn’t think the hospital was the best choice for you, with the, the wolfiness.”

That wasn’t what he’d meant. He made another incoherent sound and tried again. “Spike?”

Buffy lightly patted his shoulder. “He’s right here, Xan. ‘Cause he’s also not so much with the hospital thing. He’s in the other bed.” She gestured to his left.

He made a huge effort and was able to roll his head on the thin pillow, ignoring the fresh stabs of pain. Spike was there on the other bed, maybe four feet away, his bare chest white as the sheets. A ratty green blanket was pulled up over his hips, but it didn’t hide the gaping wound in his belly or the deep furrows on his arms and chest or the gashes on his face. His eyes were shut, his lids seeming so thin and tender, like paper that would tear if you touched it.

“He’ll be okay, Xan. We’ve given him some blood already.” She smiled thinly. “Slayer blood, actually. A few of us still have some to spare.” She held up her hand and he saw that a bandage was wrapped around her wrist. “We’ll give him more when he wakes up, okay?”

Xander expelled a huge, shuddering sigh. Spike wasn’t dust. He’d be all right.

“L-lawyers?”

Buffy’s smile was much broader this time. “Caput. Gone from this planet and zapped all the way back home.”

Shit. They’d done it. They’d destroyed Wolfram and Hart. He felt a little dizzy and he wasn’t sure if it was from his injuries or from the news. But…what had been the cost?

Xander licked his lips. They felt dry as the desert itself. Giles brought a plastic cup of water near Xander’s head. It had a coffee stirrer in it, the red plastic kind. It didn’t make a great straw, but it was better than nothing, and the tepid liquid was wonderful on his thick tongue and parched throat.

Giles allowed him only a few meager swallows before he set the cup on the scarred table that stood between the two beds. Xander licked his lips again, and then, not really wanting to, he asked, “How…how are the others?”

Buffy and Giles exchanged a quick look. In a soft voice, Buffy said, “Vega’s dead, Xan.”

Xander thought of the wizard’s flashing white smile and his stomach roiled. Danny Vega was the first man he’d ever kissed. The _only_ man he’d ever kissed, except for Spike. He’d hexed Spike, but he’d also refused to dust him when Lindsey threatened him, and he’d given them gifts, the greatest of which had been a single day in the sun with Spike. And now he was dead, in a battle that wasn’t even his.

“We lost eleven people,” Giles said. “Mostly Slayers, but also two wolves and a Lister.”

“Oz?”

Giles said, “He’s fine. A bit banged up, as are we all. Several Slayers and three of the witches are in hospital.” He laughed a little. “The emergency room here was a bit overwhelmed with us.”

“And Willow?”

“Will’s fine, Xan. She’s sleeping. The magic burst took a lot out of her. And before you ask, Angel…Angel’s in about as bad a shape as you and Spike. But Kyna’s gonna make sure he’s okay. They’re right next door.”

Xander choked out a hoarse little laugh. “That’s what got her to begin with—taking care of him.”

Buffy’s grin was nearly as wicked as Spike’s could be. “I know. That’s why I sent her.”

Xander was exhausted. The pain was washing over him in waves and he just wanted to sink into sleep for a while, to escape and maybe dream of nothing at all. His eyelid was as heavy as lead. But, gods, he wanted Spike. Needed him. He groaned helplessly.

“It’s okay, Xan. Rest.” Buffy’s small hand on his forehead was soothing. “He’ll be there when you wake up, you know. He’ll always be there for you.”

 

[Epilogue](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/72821.html)


	13. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you for reading, and special thanks to those of you who've encouraged my muse with your comments. Also, big hugs to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the fabulous banners, and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/)for the original prompt. I hope you've enjoyed!!

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/xander](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/xander), [twice bitten](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/twice%20bitten)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Twice Bitten, Epilogue**_  
**Title: **Twice Bitten   
**Chapter:** Epilogue   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** NC-17   
**Disclaimer: **I'm not Joss   
**Warnings:** m/m, language   
**Summary: **Sequel to [_Hard-Bitten_](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Hard-Bitten&filter=all) (a quick synopsis of which you can read [here](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/68293.html#cutid1)). Several years post-Chosen and post-NFA. Spike and Xander are with Angel in LA. They have a number of issues to deal with, though, including Xander's werewolf bite, Lindsey in the basement, and Wolfram &amp; Hart.   
**Author's Note: Thank you to all of you for reading, and special thanks to those of you who've encouraged my muse with your comments. Also, big hugs to [](http://sentine.livejournal.com/profile)[**sentine**](http://sentine.livejournal.com/)for the fabulous banners, and to [](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**whyskeyeyes**](http://whyskeyeyes.livejournal.com/)for the original prompt. I hope you've enjoyed!!**

 

[Previous chapters](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=Twice+Bitten&filter=all)

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0005ddac/)  
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**  
EPILOGUE**

 

“This one’s for you, pet. Come look.”

“Sweetheart, I’m right in the middle of this. Would’ve been done already if someone had got off his pretty ass and helped.”

“Oi, ‘m the foreman. Your alpha! Don’t bloody have to hoist lumber. Give it a break and come see. There’s a Heineken here with your name on it.”

Xander sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He hadn’t fixed the AC yet. Maybe he’d get to it next week, after he finished hanging the drywall.

He set down his nailgun and sauntered over to where Spike was sitting at a wobbly card table they’d unearthed in the basement. They’d set it up where the front desk used to be, and there was still a hole there in the patterned tile floor. A laptop was open and Spike was chuckling at the screen. “Slideshow from Red,” he said. Xander bent down a little to look over Spike’s shoulder. Spike handed him the open bottle and he sipped at it.

The first several pictures were of Buffy and Em at the zoo and then at someplace dreary and damp-looking that Xander knew was the English approximation of a beach. Em had sharp green eyes and wavy blonde hair and a naughty smile. Still shy of her second birthday, she was capable of wearing out a mother who was a Slayer. Buffy was really going to be in for it when the next one came along in a few months. Now, though, Buffy looked rounded and radiant.

The next set was of Willow herself, laughing as she dug in a garden. One shot showed her in a crowded, homey-looking kitchen, her hair up and a smudge of flour on one cheek, her hands coated in gluey dough. Some were of the grand opening of her new bookstore. She’d bought up most of Vega’s stock and had it shipped to England. By all accounts, Vega’s mother was going to be able to live quite comfortably on the proceeds. Willow was standing behind the counter in one picture. Her arm was wrapped around a tall, plain girl with glasses and a smile that was infectious, even from a photo taken 5000 miles away. Gemma, Xander presumed, Willow’s new squeeze. He liked the looks of her.

Some pictures of Dawn followed. She was sitting at a desk, surrounded by books, and then she was wrapped up in skiing gear, standing in the snow alongside a tall blond guy with dimples.

Finally, there was one more photo. Giles and Lindsey were mounted on horses. It was a sunny day, and both held their hands up to shield their faces. They were smiling. Behind them Xander could see Giles’s house. It wasn’t quite the ranch Lindsey had hoped for, but it was close enough, it seemed. Xander wondered how the physical therapy was going. Last he’d heard, Lindsey could walk a short distance with leg braces and a walker. Clearly, he could manage riding just fine.

When Spike clicked to close the email, Xander set the bottle on the table. He stood up straight again and stretched, groaning a little as his sore muscles complained.

“That’s enough for today,” Spike said, twisting around in his seat. “Come pound something besides nails.” He ran a cool finger just above the waistband of Xander’s jeans.

“I need to shower, Spike. I’m all grungy.”

Spike stood and stepped forward until he was very close to Xander. Then he bent his head and licked a bead of sweat off Xander’s chest before sucking and nibbling lightly on one hardened nipple. Moving his mouth away, he said, “Taste delicious to me, love. Salty and warm.”

“Spike, I want to finish here. I’m tired of that little room, and—“

“You’re almost done here and then you can work on our new flat. Meantime, our little room has a bed, and that’s all that we need right now. In fact,” he rubbed a flat palm over the scars on Xander’s chest, “don’t really need a bed. I could just stand up against that wall—the one with the lovely new boards, yeah?—and put my hands up, and—“

“Lube!” Xander blurted in self-defense. “We don’t have any lube down here.”

Spike smirked at him. “Already taken care of.”

Xander gulped.

He gave it one final try, though. “Angel and Kyna could come walking through any—“

“The pouf and the missus are off in Brentwood this evening, dealing with a nest of Kertosch. Won’t be home for hours and hours, I expect.”

Okay, that was it. Clearly, no more construction was going to be accomplished tonight. Smiling in triumph, Spike unhooked Xander’s toolbelt and let it fall to the floor with a clatter. Then he started in on Xander’s jeans, and soon they were hanging around his knees.

Spike lifted his scarred eyebrow. “Commando, pet?”

It was Xander’s turn to smirk. “You’re not the only one who came prepared. Though I gotta tell you—sweaty jeans? Major chafing issue.”

“I’ll soothe you,” Spike said, and he did, running his cold hand between Xander’s legs, high up on the thighs. His thumb brushed lightly under Xander’s ballsac, making Xander gasp slightly. “Better?” Spike asked, eyeing Xander’s hardening cock.

“Much.”

Spike stepped back slightly and peeled his shirt off, revealing his usual unmarred perfection. No sign at all of the crater he’d had in his belly, or any of the other marks he’d had. Xander, of course, would carry his souvenirs of Wolfram and Hart’s grand finale for his lifetime, but he was okay with that.

Spike kicked off his jeans, sending them flying across the lobby. They landed on that stupid round chair which had, miraculously, survived the explosion and fire. He was already erect and he stood hipshot, displaying himself for Xander.

When Xander paused, enjoying the scenery, Spike said, “C’mon, love. Kit off.” Then he turned and sauntered to the edge of the room, allowing Xander a glimpse of the end of the red butt plug he’d inserted in himself. Xander gulped. Spike arranged himself against the wall like someone about to get frisked. Which he was, if Xander could get his goddamn boots off. Stupid things had about a thousand lace grommets. Finally he kicked them off and then shimmied the rest of the way out of his pants. Spike leered at him over his shoulder and wiggled his ass a little.

Xander crossed the room very quickly. He spent several moments just looking at Spike, admiring the smooth skin and taut muscles. After all these months, he could still barely believe this was his, that he had been given such a gift. Hesitantly, as if he were touching a precious work of art, Xander stroked his hand over Spike’s spine all the way down to the rounded swell of his buttocks. He dropped to his knees, then, and mouthed and licked at one luscious cheek. When he grasped the base of the toy and rocked it slightly in and out, Spike gasped quietly and inched his legs farther apart.

Still gently moving the plug, Xander nibbled at the silky skin in front of him, working his way slowly over the curve while Spike arched his back and panted. It was awfully tempting to bite harder into the treat before him. Spike probably wouldn’t mind. But then marking such perfection even briefly seemed like desecration, and so Xander instead pulled the slick piece of silicone completely out and set it down beside him.

Spike whimpered a small complaint but stopped when Xander grabbed a handful of muscle in each hand, spread Spike’s cheeks apart, and tickled the tip of his tongue around the edge of the hungry little hole. He stopped in surprise, though. “Strawberry, baby?”

“Strawberry-kiwi, actually.”

Apparently Spike had been doing some shopping lately.

Xander took a while to savor the taste and feel, but what was really making his own cock throb insistently were the throaty little noises Spike was making, moans and purrs and half-growls. He teased as long as he could stand it, then clambered clumsily to his feet, grabbed his cock, and slid it into Spike’s ready entry.

“Oh, god, yes,” Spike hissed.

Xander grunted his agreement with the sentiment. He grasped Spike’s hips—Christ, he loved those hips, and the hard belly that lay between them—and slowly rocked back and forth.

Spike lowered one of his hands from the wall. Xander couldn’t quite see what he did with it, but from the motion of Spike’s arm he knew that his lover was fisting his own cock. He considered changing their position, maybe getting down on the dusty floor so they could be face to face, so he could watch Spike’s hand and enjoy the way Spike’s eyes would roll back in his head when Xander rubbed against his prostate. But then he’d have to pull out, and he really didn’t want to pull out because he felt too goddamn good right now, and besides, he could close his eye and imagine what Spike was doing, and that would be just fine.

Oh, that was a good plan. With his eye shut he could concentrate better on the cool tightness that gripped him so well, and on the string of filthy language that was pouring from the vampire’s beautiful mouth. “Yeah, yeah, fuck me like that, love, hard, god, deeper, love you filling me, fuck, so good, Xan.”

Xander was close. So was Spike—his words had devolved to little more than moans and gasps. Their pace had quickened and now Xander really was pounding into Spike, and Spike was thrusting back at him so as to take every bit of it. Their rhythm was starting to falter, though, as their brains temporarily lost the ability to keep proper tempo.

Xander moved his hands to Spike’s shoulders and pulled him fully upright. Then, with a roar, he buried his teeth deeply in Spike’s delicate, pale neck. “Fuck!” screamed Spike one more time, and his muscles clenched and spasmed around Xander’s cock as his come spurted onto the nice new wallboard. Xander juddered helplessly against him, his sweat sticking their bodies together as he emptied himself inside Spike.

They slowed and tried to catch their breaths. Xander slumped against Spike’s back. He licked and nibbled a little at one shoulder and Spike let his head fall back so that his hair tickled Xander’s cheek.

Eventually, though, they had to separate. Spike spun around then and they kissed, their soft, wet cocks pressed together nicely. “Bath, pet?” Spike asked. “I’ll shampoo you if you like.” The shower in their current room wasn’t big enough for two, but a bath sounded good, and Xander loved it when those strong fingers massaged his scalp. But there was still so much work to be done.

“Let me just finish this section, okay?”

Spike sighed. “Fine. But then _you_ have to shampoo _me_ first.”

“It’s a deal.”

While Spike dressed, Xander pulled on his own jeans and boots. He didn’t mind working shirtless for Spike’s benefit, but naked construction was not a good idea, and he had no particular desire to end up with a nail imbedded in his foot.

He was just buckling on his toolbelt when the front door crashed open and Angel came rushing in. He opened his mouth to speak, but then stopped. He took in their tousled hair, Xander’s flushed face, the prominent mark on Spike’s neck, the scent of strawberry-kiwi sex, and the butt plug still discarded on the floor.

“Can’t you two keep it in your own room?”

Spike sneered. “As if we didn’t hear the missus making you perfectly happy in the training room yesterday afternoon.”

Xander smothered a laugh with his hand. He tried not to encourage Spike in his Angel-baiting, he really did.

But Angel only glowered for a moment, his face clearly conveying his opinions about certain vampires and werewolves of his acquaintance. “I need your help,” he said.

Spike crossed his arms. “My boy’s still putting your bloody hotel back together, and we were just going to nip upstairs for a nice bath. Probably shag after. So sod off.”

“Your fun can wait. There were more Kertosch than we’d thought, and some of them have already started to pupate, so c’mon. We can take your van, Xander. Kyna’s waiting outside.”

Spike grumbled, but he snatched his duster off the chair while he did it, and he tossed Xander’s t-shirt to him, too. He shoved his feet into his Docs, and they trailed Angel across the lobby and toward the door.

“Stupid bloody demons. Why can’t someone else sort them for a change?”

Angel turned and looked at him. “We’re Champions, Spike. It’s what we do.”

Side by side, Xander and Spike followed Angel’s broad back out into the night. The full moon rode high, bright and promising. Spike stopped griping long enough to smile at Xander, and in those blue eyes Xander saw a reflection of his own joy. Xander grabbed Spike’s hand and grinned back before throwing his head back for a long, satisfying howl.

“Right. Carnage now, shagging later,” Spike said.

Xander howled again and broke into a lope. It was a hell of a plan.

 

_\---fin---_


End file.
